


Treatise on the Advanced Echelons of Ironic Expression

by nickel710



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alpha Dave Story, Depression, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, End of the World, F/F, Fluff, Humanstuck, Insomnia, Kinda, M/M, classpect powers, genderbent trolls (some), organized resistance, references to drug overdose, resistance to the Condesce, so people die, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-09-21 13:04:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 54,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9550358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickel710/pseuds/nickel710
Summary: Dave Strider wrote the book on irony. Literally. Well, not a book, but a peer-reviewed academic paper with over 200 footnotes. Billionaire, movie producer, and now bona fide scholar. Oh, and primary financier and ironicist of the North American resistance to the Baroness of Crockercorp. It's 2006 and the sea levels are rising too fast, the food is full of "vitamins" that make you passive, and information is disappearing from the internet at the Baroness's whim. Dave joined the resistance long before his breakout movie success with SBaHJ; Rose's visions left no doubt that the two of them would be on the frontlines of the fight to save the world. He just hadn't expected Rose to ask him to house one of their fellow freedom fighters for a while, or for him to have *such* a nice ass. Yeah, he wrote the book on irony, so he knows exactly where this is going.





	1. Somewhere Between Awake and Asleep

**Author's Note:**

> A few more chapters have already been written, so look for chapter 3 on Feb 9, 2017, and chapter 4 on Feb 16. Hopefully we'll keep pace for 1 per week. Aiming for 8-10 chapters.

“Dave,” Rose sighed, her voice a bit obscured by the static of the bad connection. He really wished she’d move into a goddamn city where cell reception wasn’t so bad. “Why did you publish a forty-four-page treatise on the advanced echelons of ironic expression in the batterwitch’s premier academic journal?”

Dave propped his feet up on his desk, leaning back in his fancy office chair, back to his office’s wall-to-wall window that overlooked Los Angeles. He used his chin and shoulder to hold the phone while tossing a baseball up and down. “Have you ever heard of the game ‘chicken,’ Lalonde?”

“If you mean the test of foolishness and recklessness that young men often feel compelled to engage in to prove their masculinity by driving at each other headlong until someone either moves aside or dies, then yes.”

“I’m playing chicken with Betty. CAQ published the whole thing, wholesale. Didn’t even have to revise and resubmit. Just got a glowing set of review letters about the timeliness and importance of the piece, and the Baroness’s personal stamp of approval.”

“So who won?”

Dave paused, frowning at the baseball. “Nobody. But you know who lost? All those poor assholes reading the treatise and taking it as the word of god. It’s more like the shit of god, if god were a mangy mutt with three legs and one eye.”

“Charming as always.”

The baseball went up. “You know me,” Dave said, catching it again. Up. Down. “Dave Charming Strider.”

Rose laughed softly and Dave smiled. There it was. That laugh. It never failed to make him immensely pleased when he got her to laugh.

“If your middle name is Charming,” she drawled, “mine is Shortsighted.”

“Ouch, Lalonde, Jegus. You wound me.”

Another sigh. “It seems it is past time for this conversation to end. You’ll be at the meeting next month?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Don’t let anyone—”

“—follow me, yeah yeah, I know. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, you know. Just like you. I know the drill.”

“Take care of yourself, Dave.”

Dave snapped the burner cell in half, took out the memory card, crushed the rest under his foot, then opened the door to his balcony and hurled the pieces as far as he could over the edge, watching them fall and twirl down to the pavement many, many stories below.

 

 

“—other news,” the anchor rambled as Dave clicked the TV on, then tossed the remote onto the couch and started to loosen his tie, “the young heiress to Crockercorp made her debut at the corporate opening of the Crocker Foundation Center in Seattle. Jane Crocker, now thirteen, assisted with the ribbon-cutting, wearing a classic gown designed by—”

Dave rolled his eyes and went to click off the TV—not like he needed to know more about the batterwitch-in-training, she was just another cog in the corporate destruction machine—when the girl in the video looked up and smiled nervously at the camera. His heart clenched and time slowed.

Beat.

His vision tunneled on the girl’s face.

Beat.

Those black curls, framing a dark face.

Beat.

The buckteeth peeking out as she smiled.

Beat.

The glasses over bright blue eyes.

Beat.

“John?” he whispered, confused. The image cut away to the front doors of the new Crocker Foundation Center and time seemed to resume its normal flow. Dave came to his senses, standing there with one hand frozen on his tie, the other holding the TV remote loosely. What the hell? Who was John? Did he know a John? Why did this Jane girl make him think of John, whom he didn’t know?

Jane Crocker. He turned off the TV, tossed the remote back to the couch, and got online. He learned as much as he could about the heiress, the research feeling so vital for some reason. It didn’t take long to learn her grandfather had been John Crocker, TV comedian whom Dave now remembered from his childhood.

The obituary for John had a picture from his younger days side-by-side with his older visage, and Dave felt that clenching of his chest again as time seemed to slow and each heartbeat came seconds from the previous one. He was sure he had never met John Crocker, and yet… he had a vague but overwhelming feeling of grief welling up as he stared at the younger picture and thought about… what? How great of friends they had been? _You never met the guy, Dave. Snap out of it._

He closed the window and sat back, feeling like he had just been beat down in a particularly bad strife. He had felt this before, this weird time thing. When he had first met Rose, years and years ago. Why were Jane and John Crocker inspiring similar feelings?

He looked at the clock. 11:24 PM. How had that much time passed? Time _never_ slipped away from Dave. He wore a watch ironically, because the damn thing had no batteries and always read 4:13, but nobody had ever noticed because he was so damn punctual it hurt. Except when he was early or late, for ironic purposes (see page 17 of the Treatise on Irony [Strider 2006]).

His stomach grumbled.

He took two more sleeping pills than the doctor had prescribed and fell asleep on the couch.

 

 

The phone was ringing.

Someone was lying next to him, maybe they were saying something?

It was like trying to hear through fog. Wait, was he mixing metaphors?

“Dave! Get the damn phone.”

Oh right, the phone was ringing.

Dave reached over, having to disengage from the tangled sheets a bit before he could finally grab the receiver off his bedside table.

“…’lo?” he mumbled, tucking the phone against his shoulder as he grabbed his shades off the table, too. It was too fucking bright.

He heard nothing of the reply.

Shades on, brightness reduced, he wondered why he felt a weird pressure on his chin. Oh, right. The phone.

“What?” he said, trying to focus. Why was he so foggy?

“…your 9:00 appointment, Mr. Strider?”

It was 8:15. The car was here to take him to his 9:00, and his was barely conscious.

“I’ll be down in a few,” he mumbled, hanging up before the reply could filter through the haze of his addled mind.

He looked across the bed to the person sleeping next to him. Her name was… Vanessa? He’d slept with her a few times. She was nice. Her mouth was moving. He frowned, focusing.

“…stop taking pills like that, Dave,” she was saying. “You’re a mess.”

He let his head fall back onto his pillow, shades and all, but a moment later Vanessa was on her feet, tugging him out of bed and into the bathroom. She shoved him into a cold shower, and the shock of the water snapped him out of the drug-addled state he had woken to.

Well, a bit.

He soaped himself down quickly, used his 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner combo in record time, and hopped out of the cold jet of water. Vanessa had pulled on her clothes and set out a suit for him, which he threw on as quickly as possible.

“Seriously, Dave,” she said, frowning. “You know that taking that many sleeping pills is dangerous, right?”

He sighed. “We’re all gonna die anyway, babe,” he pointed out. She rolled her eyes, mistaking his words for run-of-the-mill existentialism. Ha. _She_ didn’t have a Seer for a sister.

Vanessa was nice enough, but this would be the last time he hooked up with her. She was starting to be too familiar, and familiar was bad.

They navigated their way through his large Beverly Hills home, far too spacious for just him, or really for anyone except a family of sixty. He used three rooms with any frequency: his bedroom, the TV room, and his office. The kitchen seemed like a good idea but mostly he just stashed his granola bars and apple juice there.

The limo driver was waiting in the driveway, and when he saw Dave and Vanessa emerge, he opened the door to the back of the car for them. Vanessa angled herself in, then Dave bid her goodbye and gently shut the door without getting in. He handed the driver a $300 tip and told him to take her wherever she wanted to go. The driver didn’t argue. Dave had never intended to get in the limo, or to show up at the 9:00 appointment his personal assistant had logged for him. The appointment had been about producing some new line of SBaHJ merchandise with a potential industry contact, who did not exist. If someone called to talk to her, one Rose Lalonde would be waiting on the other end of the line to insist that in fact, she and Dave had spent the whole day golfing and talking over the next script.

His phone immediately started chiming as the limo pulled away. Vanessa, no doubt, explaining exactly how much of a dick move it had been to shuttle her off like that. Hopefully telling him she would never speak to him again so he didn’t have to worry about breaking things off with her.

Not quite steady on his feet, and not quite caring enough to call a cab, Dave walked to his garage, chose his Lexus RX—the only of his cars that was silver instead of red, and did not have some absurd vanity plate—for anonymity, and sped away, sleepy haze from the aftermath of a few extra pills be damned.

Three and a half hours later he arrived at his destination, a helipad in Fresno where a trusted pilot, Tavita, had the chopper fired up and ready. He crossed the distance, suit and tie flapping in the wind created by the propeller, and climbed into the passenger seat, fist-bumping Tavita. She grinned and handed him his headset. Once he was fully secure and had the headset ready to go, Tavita lifted them off the ground and they set off to meet Rose and the others.

This was the meeting Rose had asked if Dave would be attending, almost a month ago, when he had last spoken to her on the phone about his Treatise on Irony (Strider 2006). Luckily, between the long drive to Fresno and the additional hour and a half it took to get to the abandoned clearing in the heart of the Sierra National Forest (funding for the national park service had dried up some time ago, and now all these ranger stations were just empty) Dave sobered up. Chatting with Tavita cleared his head the rest of the way, and he felt downright alert and ready to go when they finally landed the helicopter in the clearing and made their way to the cabin.

Rose took one look at him and was furious. She grabbed his arm, hauling him away from a bemused Tavita, and shoved him away from her again, crossing her arms. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she hissed. “How many pills did you take, Dave?”

“Rose—”

“Don’t ‘Rose’ me! I know you’re doing it again, don’t even think about lying.”

He groaned, slipping a hand under his shades to rub at his eyes. “I can’t fucking sleep if I don’t, Rose. I’m no good to anyone if I’m out of my mind thanks to insomnia. You’ve seen Fight Club. You know how that shit goes down. Do you want me punching myself in the corner?”

She shoved his shoulder again. “You’re no good to anyone strung out, either! And what if you overdose?” He shrugged uncomfortably, but said nothing. “Hmm? I didn’t catch that, Dave.”

“Who cares,” he muttered, looking away.

“Who cares if you overdose?” she clarified, a terrifying mix of astonished and irate stamped on her delicate features. “Who cares? _I_ care, you ass!”

“I’ll be careful,” he assured her, feeling a pang of remorse as she covered her face with one hand, the other on her canted hip.

“Careful,” she repeated lowly. “He’ll be careful. Fucking great. I swear, Dave Strider, if you leave me to fight this alone because you can’t keep yourself sober, I will kill you.”

“Wouldn’t I already be dead, in that situation?” She peeked between her fingers to glare at him, and he threw up his hands in defeat. “Never mind. You’re right. I have no doubt you would use your dark majyyks and stuff my soul back into my embalmed, drug-filled body, just to stab me to death again with one of your ‘knitting’ needles.”

“Don’t you think for a minute I wouldn’t,” she agreed, finally dropping her hand. She sighed, the fight leaving her, and wrapped her arms around his waist. “What are we going to do with you, Dave.”

“Not tell my doctor I’ve been tripling my dosage, I hope?” he half-joked as he returned the hug. But Rose didn’t laugh, just whimpered a little at the admission to the level of his abuse, and he felt a deep and painful shame that he had reduced her to such a sound. He was shit. The worst piece of shit.

She moved away and started to turn back to the group gathered in the next room, but Dave caught her arm. “Wait, Rose. I need to ask you something.” She stopped, raising an eyebrow at him as an indication to go ahead. “Jane Crocker. John Crocker. Do they mean something to us?”

She frowned, her violet eyes narrowing. “I… don’t know,” she said softly. “Isn’t John Crocker the brother of Jade English?”

Dave blinked. He had completely forgotten that Jade English had been the Baroness’s child, too. It hadn’t come up in his research before because after she had defied her mother, the Baroness had scrubbed all mention of her from records everywhere. Surely there was still some indication of their relation somewhere online—the internet was forever, after all—but the obvious places Dave had been looking had all been censored. He mentally shuddered at the thought. If the Baroness could make Jade English disappear from the internet, how much other information had she poisoned?

“You’re right, of course,” Dave murmured. “Poor Jade, how could I have forgotten?”

Rose patted his arm. “We’ll talk about this more later. For now, come back to the group… everyone is missing us.”

In the next room, Rose and Dave were unsurprised to walk into a tense scene. The two most headstrong members of the group were at it again, arguing loudly while the others sat by and listened uncomfortably. Vera Sekoya, a dominating woman with dark skin and thick glasses, was rolling her eyes as Karthik Vanda ranted about the futility of some plan she had made. Dave liked Karthik, but the guy was so loud all the time. Vera, on the other hand, made him extremely uneasy. He trusted her well enough, he guessed, but she always seemed to have some complicated set of plans in motion of which no one else quite knew the extent, like a spider in the middle of an infinitely complex web.

Karthik fell silent as Rose and Dave entered. Everyone turned to look at them. Tavita, now sitting next to her brother Rudy. Terry, blind eyes covered with dark red shades that Dave had always admired. Kohana, stately and dressed to the height of fashion. Neco, tanned and smiling like he was on vacation, a kitten in his lap (where had the kitten come from? Dave wondered. It was Neco, though—dude _always_ had a kitten).

The eight of them represented the leadership of the North American resistance. Dave was exceedingly proud of the crew Jade had gathered before her death. Tavi and Rudy hailed from the Midwest, organizing pods of activists from Missouri to Michigan, Nebraska to Ohio, under the guise of running nightclubs. Neco, an immigrant from Egypt, had settled in Arizona and maintained a large underground complex where he worked with his friend Epona, a shy Mexican American genius, and other scientists developing experimental technology and weapons. Karthik had settled in the Pacific Northwest to work with Jade more closely before her death, and since then had been traveling a great deal to try to bring new people in to the resistance. Vera was the leader of the Native American resistance, one of the strongest contingents. Terry worked in the South out of Texas, leading every legal battle they could still attempt to win against the Baroness. Kohana, a Hawaiian model who traveled and did a lot of outreach for her job, spent time educating others in every city she worked in, trying to spread the word.

Rose, from her reclusive New York mansion, orchestrated the lot of them, and Dave provided money. Money and a huge market of irony-consuming idiots.

“Took you long enough,” Karthik snapped at Dave.

“Hey! Tavi just got here, too, why am I getting yelled at?”

Karthik threw himself back onto the couch next to the fireplace, and Vera took her seat as well. Dave settled next to Karthik while Rose pulled up a chair and nestled it between Kohana and Terry.

“Tavi had to wait for you before she could fly the chopper here, obviously,” Karthik said while Terry snickered.

Dave opened his mouth to defend himself but Vera interrupted. “You two can flirt later,” she said with a smirk, then talked over both of their sputtering protests. “Rose, can we get down to business?”

“Yes, why don’t we.” She rummaged through a backpack that Dave presumed she had set here before his arrival and removed a notepad. Rose never used digital storage for items related to the resistance. “First order of business, Neco. How goes the development of the defense mechanism I foresaw?”

Neco frowned at the kitten in his lap, who was purring and stretching its paws contentedly as he stroked its fur. “Slow,” he admitted. “Epi is working on it, but she keeps running into power source problems. Your description of the item is a bit vague…?”

Rose nodded. “I am sorry about that,” she said, “but I can only give you what I know, and I have certainly given you that much. You know that if I could, I would tell you more.”

Neco sighed. “Very well. We could use some extra funds.”

Dave shot him a thumbs up. “Five mil, coming your way as soon as I get home.”

“Actually,” Rudy chimed in, sharing a glance with Tavi, “we could use more money, too, Dave. We’re making good profits at the clubs, but we pour all of it straight into the bunkers.”

“How much?” Dave asked, accepting a piece of paper and pen offered by Rose so he could write down the information.

“Uh, two million ought to get us through the, uh, the next year?” Tavi hazarded. Rudy nodded.

“Three mil it is,” Dave said, jotting down the amounts. “Anyone else?”

Vera waved at him. “Your donations to the various reservations are still ongoing, I presume?” Dave nodded. “Then we’re all set.” 

Kohana shook her head, and Dave knew Terry was fine because the two of them kept an open flow of money to fund her legal proceedings. That left Karthik. Dave looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

“Actually, Dave,” Rose interjected as Karthik squirmed a bit, looking decidedly uncomfortable, “Karthik won’t be needing you to send him money right now.”

Dave looked between the two of them, sensing he wasn’t getting the full information. “Okay?” he said, prompting his sister.

“He’ll be going back to Los Angeles with you after today’s meeting,” Rose continued. “It’s been years since Jade died and we need him to start working from one place again instead of bouncing around all the time.”

Dave raised an eyebrow at her, then turned back to Karthik. “Cool, man. I guess you’ll be able to just swing by my place next time you need some cash.”

Rose cleared her throat. “I had rather hoped,” she began tentatively, “that Karthik could move in _to_ your place.”

Dave was stunned for a moment, his brain speeding into action to think through what it would mean. Karthik, move in? It wouldn’t stay secret for long, they would have to get ahead of the media and give a plausible explanation. Family matters? Karthik’s family was from India and Dave was as white as white got, so it wouldn’t be very plausible. Lovers? It would be rather abrupt for living together, but Hollywood relationships were always such a whirl, would people buy it?

“I’m not happy about invading your fortress of solitude, either, Strider,” muttered Karthik.

Dave blinked, pulled from his reverie. “What? No, dude, that’s awesome. My house is big enough for you and a small army, why the hell not? Besides, it’ll make it way easier to talk to each other without compromising a phone line or having to use the internet.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Rose said, satisfied.

“How much stuff do you have?” Dave asked. “A moving van would be pretty conspicuous….”

“Just some clothes and my computer, really,” Karthik said, looking a little surprised by how quickly Dave had agreed. “I have a duffle and a backpack with me, and that’s about it.”

“Great, so everything will fit in the helicopter,” Dave confirmed with Tavi, who nodded.

“So that settles that, then,” Rose said with a little nod. “Good. Who’s next. Kohana?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise there will be an explanation for the kinda sorta human trolls in a few chapters!
> 
> Strider, D. (2006). "Treatise on the Advanced Echelons of Ironic Expression." _Crocker Academic Quarterly, 12_ (3), 160-204.


	2. Somewhere Between Familiar and Novel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was supposed to wait until next week but I'm kinda excited to get more of the story out there! It's a short one but big things are coming in the next two!

The meeting ran long, as it always did. By the time they made their way back to the helicopter, it was past 7:00 pm. Most of the crew would spend the night here, and Tavi would fuel up in Fresno, then return the next day to shuttle people to nearby towns where they would find their cars or take taxis to airports to return home. The helicopter was technically Dave’s, and was housed in Fresno, so Tavi and Rudy would fly back to their home base in Chicago after everyone else was safely distributed.

They arrived in Fresno at 8:30, and transferred Karthik’s belongings to Dave’s Lexus. They dropped Tavi off at her hotel before heading back to Beverly Hills.

Karthik fell asleep around 10:00, only waking up when Dave stopped for gas on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Dave got lucky and managed to pump and pay without anyone recognizing him despite wearing his iconic suit and shades. Usually when he went out among the people, if he didn’t want to be noticed he wore jeans, t-shirts, hats, and what he called douche shades. Of course he recognized the irony, since his daily Aviators were douchey to the max, but his incognito shades were the sort that your average non-ironic douche wore—you know what, if you really think it’s that interesting, you can read all about it in the Treatise (Strider 2006, p. 36). [Be sure to check endnote 294 for the all-important commentary on the advanced irony involved in disclosing one’s disguise choices.]

Dave didn’t have any regular staff at his estate—no chef or guards or gatekeeper. You either had the code to get in or you didn’t, and the codes changed regularly. Dave’s PA had her phone linked to the gate so that she could let drivers, delivery people, groundskeepers, and cleaning staff in. She and Rose were the only people besides Dave who always knew the code to get in directly, but as he punched it in, he glanced at Karthik. Hopefully he was good at remembering six-digit codes.

At quarter past midnight, Dave parked the car in its spot in his garage and shook Karthik awake. The dark-skinned man was alert in a flash, reaching behind himself as if for a weapon. Dave held up his open-palms to show his lack of weapon or intent. “Whoa, there, bud. No strifing tonight.” He gestured out the windshield to the rest of the garage. “Welcome home, I guess.”

Karthik looked around at the collection of ostentatious cars and rolled his eyes. “Of course you have a million cars,” he muttered as he opened his door and got out of the car, stretching his back.

“You could at least pretend to be impressed,” Dave pouted, slinging Karthik’s duffle over his shoulder and handing him his backpack.

“I can carry the duffle, asshat,” he said.

“I know you can,” Dave said with a shrug, and carried it anyway across the garage and up the stairs into the house. It was a different entrance than he had used last time, since he had taken Vanessa to the limo first, and opened directly into a mudroom. Like most of the house, this was more or less empty, except a series of hooks with keys to each car, and some winter coats and gear stored in bins for when Dave visited Rose or went snowboarding. Which, sadly, was not often.

“I’ll give you the whole tour tomorrow,” Dave said as he hung up the keys to the Lexus, “but tonight I figure you probably just want to get some sleep. Here’s what you need to know.” He led Karthik from the mudroom into the kitchen, and from there through an open dining room to the main entry to the house. “From the foyer,” Dave said, orienting both of them so their backs were to the entry, “go left and up the stairs to get to your room and bathroom. Go right to get to the kitchen and garage. Straight ahead is the TV room and my office. My bedroom is below yours on the ground floor.”

Karthik took in this information silently, and Dave hoped he’d remember enough to be able to navigate to the main core of the house in the morning, or he could get hopelessly lost in the relatively unused portions of the estate. “Let’s get you set up. We should swap phone numbers, for roommate things. If you get lost in the morning, you can text me.”

They made their way up the stairs to the guest room that Dave had figured would be Karthik’s, since it was the closest guest room to the core. It was immaculate, the interior design done by one of Kohana’s friends and kept clean and ready for guests by Dave’s cleaning staff, who spent every Thursday tidying after him. Mostly they just dusted and vacuumed since the house was so empty, but besides this they took care of his personal spaces, laundry, and dishes, and he also paid them to keep a small amount of non-perishable food and spices stocked and up-to-date in the kitchen. For appearances.

It was wasteful, but the world was ending and oceans would rise whether he was environmentally conscious or not, because that’s what the Baroness wanted. So, whatever.

Dave showed Karthik the closet, the desk where he could set up his computer, and the bathroom, as well as how to operate the shower. They exchanged phone numbers, and then Dave bade him goodnight and made his way back to his room.

He stared at his bed, where last night he had fucked Vanessa and then taken too many pills and passed out. He had read the texts from her, and they weren’t nearly angry enough for his taste. He’d have to actually go through the motions of breaking things off with her, not that they had been anything more official than a favorite booty call. He looked at the pill bottle and felt the pull to take some of Mommy’s Little Helpers, but he thought about the whimper that had escaped Rose when he had admitted to how many he was taking each night, and spun on his heel, retreating to his office.

Somewhere around 7:45 in the morning he drifted to sleep.

Nightmares woke him at 9:09.

Anxiety made him jump when Karthik found him at his desk at 9:51.

The sword that flashed from his specibus into his hand disappeared just as quickly when he registered who was standing in his doorway.

“Sorry, man, didn’t mean to startle you,” Karthik said, eyes wide. He looked Dave over, eyebrows furrowing. “Did you even go to bed?”

Dave looked down at himself and saw he was still wearing the suit Vanessa had picked out for him while he had showered off the worst of his sleeping pill drowsiness yesterday.

He didn’t have it in him to be flippant or light-hearted. “No,” he said. “Let’s get breakfast.”

“I usually just make some eggs and toast,” Karthik replied with a shrug.

“Nah, I want the good stuff today. Greasy, nasty, all-American diner breakfast. I’ll get changed and meet you in the kitchen.”

Karthik followed Dave to his bedroom, though. Dave didn’t really care; his bedroom was no more private to him than the rest of the house, really, since he rarely had guests except the occasional fuck buddy. Still, having Karthik lounge in his bedroom doorway and look over the rumpled sheets and discarded condom packets made Dave a little uncomfortable. And maybe a little curious. Karthik was tall and lean, broad-shouldered and narrow at the waist. Dave wouldn’t say he had a type in potential lovers, really, but if he did, Karthik fit it pretty well. 

“Here for a show?” Dave asked as he tossed his suit jacket onto the bed and took off his belt. Normally he did change out of his suit as soon as he came home, but last night he had been in a hurry to avoid the sleeping pills and had barely even remembered to kick off his shoes.

Karthik snorted. “You wish, Strider. Just trying to get in the head of a guy who makes billions by creating absolute trash.”

Dave grinned as he threw his tie next to his belt and started unbuttoning the white dress shirt. “Get in my head, or my pants, dude? This is my bedroom. You want insight into my creative genius, you gotta see my work office.”

He expected Karthik to get flustered by the subtle come-on, but he just met Dave’s eyes stoically as Dave stripped off his undershirt and was left wearing nothing but pants and socks. Karthik let his eyes wander down from Dave’s face to his muscled stomach, then smirked. “Hm,” he said, and walked away.

Dave gaped at the empty doorway. What?

Then he grinned and stripped off his pants and boxers.

Vanda 1, Strider 0.

 

 

“Hi there, Mark!” chimed Dave’s favorite server as he followed Karthik through the door of his favorite diner, Butler’s.

“Hey, Lucy, baby,” Dave said, dropping a kiss on her cheek. She knew who he was but kept his secret so he could dine in peace, and he only ever came when he knew she had a shift. Which was most mornings, really. She was a single mother with three kids, ages seven to thirteen, and Dave made a point to spoil her rotten. She had stopped protesting the too-big cash tips some time ago, because he always just shrugged and left them anyway. The other servers apparently thought “Mark” was in love with her since he would only be served by her, but she just laughed them off and stashed the money away before they could see the Benjamins. None of them had connected the somewhat shabby and ordinary man in jeans and flip-flops to the elusive billionaire producer, and Dave preferred it that way.

“Sit over in that corner, doll,” she told him as she handed him two menus, winking at Karthik before turning back to check on one of her other tables. They sat at the table she had pointed to, Dave with his back to the rest of the diner as always to minimize the chance of someone seeing his face and connecting the dots. It didn’t happen often, but he really did _not_ want the public figuring out this was his favorite place to grab breakfast.

Karthik looked over the menu doubtfully, but Dave just waited for Lucy to come by, drumming on the table’s edge with his forefinger. Lucy appeared with his standard black coffee and slid it down in front of him, raising an eyebrow at the drumming fingers. “Maybe you want decaf today, sugar?” she asked.

Dave scoffed. “Decaf? The day I drink decaf is the day everything has gone terribly wrong. Real coffee or no coffee, Lucy, you know that.”

Karthik raised an eyebrow. “Then maybe no coffee,” he suggested. “You’ve been jittery all morning.”

“Everyone back off my coffee,” Dave said, putting a hand protectively around it. He looked back up at Lucy, who seemed a little surprised by his snappish response, and smiled apologetically. “Didn’t get much sleep yesterday, babe. Nothing to worry about. My usual, please.”

“Of course, dear. And for you?” she asked Karthik.

“His usual,” Karthik said, setting down the menu with a sigh. “Too much to choose from.”

“Anything to drink, dear?” Lucy asked Karthik, who added a coffee to his order. She disappeared and reappeared with coffee, then told them she’d be back with their food in a few minutes.

“So, what is your usual?” Karthik asked, adding cream and sugar to his coffee.

“Eggs, scrambled, hash browns with hot sauce, sourdough toast, extra bacon, and a short stack of pancakes, plus a cup of fruit,” Dave rattled off. “Best goddamn breakfast in the world.”

“I could make that at home,” Karthik pointed out.

“Not like they make it here, man.” Dave nodded definitively. “But if you plan to cook we’re gonna need to go to the store. I don’t use the kitchen much.” They sipped their coffee for a minute, then Dave leaned back and regarded Karthik thoughtfully. “So, what’s it gonna be? Family somehow? Lovers?”

“What?”

“We need a story for why you’re here,” Dave said. “The press will find out soon enough and when they do, we have to be ahead of it, or it’s gonna be even more of a feeding frenzy than normal. They love to gossip about me,” he said smugly.

Karthik rolled his eyes. “College buddies?”

Dave frowned, considering, then shook his head. “They don’t know much about my college days, but it’ll be easy for them to track you down if we say college. They’ll look into your yearbooks and find that I’m not there, and then we’ll be caught in the lie.”

“People don’t know where you went to college?”

Dave smirked. “You think ‘Dave Strider’ is my real name?” he asked pointedly, but quietly so that others nearby wouldn’t hear. “Nah, man, Dave Strider leapt into this world a fully formed adult with no past and no baggage for the press to dig up, thank you very much. Modern day Athena, that is me, if we count an incarnation of Irony as Zeus.”

“So where did you go to college?”

The question surprised Dave. Vanda 2, Strider 0. Dave rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. He hated thinking about or talking about his pre-Strider years. Plenty of miserable memories to drag a dude down. It made him feel anxious again, his heart racing. “Got my associate’s degree from a community college in Houston,” he said, shrugging and trying to sound cool. He doubted he had pulled it off.

“Oh,” Karthik said, tilting his head with a look of confused concern. “I didn’t—”

Dave shook his head. “Don’t,” he said, sipping his coffee again. “I just… don’t talk about it much, okay? If it happened before I was twenty, let’s pretend it didn’t happen at all.” Silence stretched for a minute and Dave felt compelled to break it. “Where did you go? To college, I mean.”

“University of Texas,” Karthik answered. “Hook ‘em Horns, or whatever. Got my degree in English in ’99.”

“Really? UT?” Dave asked. Karthik nodded. “Let’s see, in ’99 I still lived in Texas. We could say we were roommates when we were both fresh out of college, and that you’re here looking for a new job and I’m letting you stay with me until you figure it out. Even if they dig a bunch, that should be a fairly hard thing to disprove.”

Karthik shrugged. “Sure.”

Their food arrived and Lucy topped off their coffee, and for a while they were silent as they dug in to the feast in front of them. When it came time to pay, Dave rolled his eyes at Karthik’s attempt to offer money, and left an extra $100 for Lucy because he knew it was her youngest son’s birthday in a few weeks. She kissed the top of his head before he got up from the table. He liked Lucy. She might be his only friend outside the resistance.

“Where are we going?” Karthik asked as Dave drove them further from the house.

“Gonna buy you a car,” Dave said.

“What?! Strider, absolutely not. That is the shittiest idea I have ever heard, you can’t just _buy me a car_.”

“Why not? I have enough cash in the glovebox to get you some mediocre luxury car so that it fits in on my street but doesn’t stand out elsewhere. Seriously, what’s sixty grand?”

Karthik sputtered. He was used to Dave financing things, but from a distance. Dave was the guy who said he’d take care of it, and then he did, and that was that. Maybe Terry or Tavi and Rudy were more used to big chunks of money coming all at once, but Karthik had just needed enough to cover travel expenses most of the time. The idea of sixty thousand dollars being chump change was not exactly unexpected, but it was one thing to know a guy was a billionaire and another to experience his cavalier attitude toward money firsthand.

“Karthik, you can’t drive my cars around, did you see them? Everyone knows they're mine. This is the only one of the lot that doesn’t immediately catch a tail, and that’s only sometimes because the paparazzi know I have this car, but it’s harder to spot. So unless you want to have a camera in your face all the time? Or only go out when I do?”

“Fine,” Karthik snapped. “But if you’re just going to throw the money at me, I’m going to get whatever features I want.”

Dave smirked. “You get those fancy leather seats, babe. Automatic windows and four wheel drive. But maybe not the nice rims, don’t wanna break the bank, here.”

Dave gave Karthik the money and dropped him at the Lexus dealership, explaining he didn’t want anyone to figure out he was funding the car because once one gossip rag got news that he was buying handsome men cars, that’s all they’d be reading about for weeks. He made sure Karthik knew how to get home and the code for the gate, then left him to his car shopping with the fat envelope of cash.

Karthik returned that evening with a convertible SC 430 in black.

 

 

Dave managed three more days of insomnia, jitters, anxiety, and snapping at everyone, before he caved and took two sleeping pills. It was less than he had been taking before Rose had inadvertently guilt-tripped him into trying to quit, but when they kicked in and he felt himself relaxing into his soft sheets for the first time in four nights, the euphoria hit him hard, and he slept for ten dreamless hours.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your kudos and comments give me life. They are a shining light among the chaotic shitshow of American politics and social life right now. Be the light. <3


	3. Somewhere Between Honesty and Lying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fluff! Enjoy it while it lasts *wonk*

Dave liked mornings at the office best. He was still trying to avoid taking the pills more often than not, so most weekdays he didn’t really sleep and instead drove himself to his downtown skyscraper office before 6:00 am. From about 6:00 to 9:00, he got the most work done, before everyone started demanding his attention, the phone ringing nonstop, and the endless meetings. Is this the marketing approach we want to take, Mr. Strider? What should we do about the scheduling conflict with the Marquise Gala and the premier of _Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff: The ani-mini-moive,_ Mr. Strider? The China branch’s dubbing crew is here for your direction, Mr. Strider.

It had been about two months since Karthik had moved in, and Dave was actually surprisingly happy to have a roommate. Karthik made breakfast for both of them and sometimes even cooked dinner. He commiserated about Dave’s boring meetings and had shitty taste in movies (but still thought SBaHJ was terrible, how rude). He kept Dave informed about some of the more mundane events happening with the resistance, the daily inner workings of a revolution orchestrated from coffee shops and libraries around Los Angeles. One of Neco’s stockpile of mad scientists at his Arizona compound made sure Karthik’s connections were secure and bouncing around the world so that Crockercorp would have a hard time finding his location.

For the last month or so, Dave had settled into a routine. Monday through Friday, he worked from 6:00 am to 7:00 pm at the office, then went home and hung out with Karthik until he went to bed. At that point, Dave would plan the subversive, anti-Crockercorp messages he wanted to include in his next script or event. Sometimes he slept a few hours if he could manage, then showered and headed back to the office.

Friday and Saturday night, he took too many sleeping pills and slept hard all weekend, awake for maybe eight hours a day, and minimally cognizant for those hours.

Karthik was not dumb. Dave knew he had noticed this pattern, so it didn’t come as too much of a surprise when Karthik was waiting to ask him about it when he staggered into the house at 7:12 pm on Friday night, exhausted and desperate for his weekly reprieve from the insomnia.

“What’s with the sleeping habits?” he asked, handing Dave a plate of homemade pad thai.

Dave groaned. “Nope,” he said, shoveling some of the delicious noodles into his mouth even as he tugged off his tie. “Not going there.”

“Dave, you’re running yourself into the ground. Do you even sleep during the week?”

“Not really,” he said, turning away and taking his plate of noodles to the TV room and collapsing onto the couch. Karthik followed him stubbornly.

“Why not?” he demanded, arms crossed.

Dave growled. He really did not want to do this again. It hadn’t gone well with Rose, and it wasn’t going to go well with Karthik. “Drop it,” he said harshly. “Don’t you have some shitty romcom cued up for us to watch?”

Karthik sat on the other side of the couch and curled his feet up underneath him, arms crossed. Dave met his eyes, challenging him even as he stuffed another bite into his mouth. Damn, that touch of cilantro was just… perfect.

“How do you even survive without sleeping five days a week?”

Dave groaned and swallowed his bite, then set the plate down and turning to face his roommate angrily. “What part of ‘drop it’ is unclear to you?”

“The ‘drop’ part,” snapped Karthik. “Or the part where you think you exclusively control what we talk about.”

“Why do you even care whether or not I sleep?” Dave demanded, rubbing his hands over his eyes and up into his hair in frustration.

“What kind of bullshit question is that? Of course I care, you fucker. I care about _you,_ so I care if you’re killing yourself by never sleeping.”

Dave was surprised by how much the words ‘I care about you’ affected him. The past two months had been an interesting song and dance with Karthik, who always managed to wrong-foot Dave in surprising ways. From Dave’s point of view, they had been hovering at the edge of flirting, and more often than not it snuck up on him. Unlike his usual suave and aloof manner of flirting, this thing with Karthik happened when Dave wasn’t paying attention, good-natured teasing that lasted a little too long, playful arguments about movies, eye contact and smiles by accident. And, yeah, Dave had spent a fair amount of time admiring his tight little ass, too, because seriously, who wouldn’t?

But Karthik saying he cared about Dave didn’t even really feel like that almost-flirting. It felt more like when Rose said it—like it was _real_. It had been years since anyone besides Rose had said that they cared about him and he had believed them. Since Jade had died. Maybe he would believe Lucy, the server from that diner, if she said it, but honestly they didn’t really know each other. 

“Dave?” Karthik prompted, the anger gone from his voice. Dave realized he had gone silent for far too long and shook himself. “Are you okay?”

“I’m an insomniac, Karthik,” he said, voice resigned.

“No shit.”

“No, I mean like, actually an insomniac. Card-carrying and all that.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Have you tried sleeping pills?”

Dave covered his eyes with a hand and laughed bitterly, leaning back against the back of the couch in defeat. “Why do you think I’m always out of it on the weekends?”

“Okay, just hazarding a guess here, but I don’t think you’re supposed to only take them on the weekends,” Karthik said drily. Dave still had his eyes covered, but he didn’t need to see to know that Karthik was rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, well, if you can figure out a better way for me to keep myself from overdosing, I’m all ears,” he muttered.

“What the hell does that mean?” Karthik demanded with alarm.

Dave dropped his hand to his lap, keeping his eyes closed. “Ask Rose,” he said.

“I don’t want to ask Rose, I’m asking you, buttmuncher.”

Dave cracked a smile and opened one eye to look at his friend. “Buttmuncher?”

Karthik scowled. “Yeah. Buttmuncher. What did you mean, keep you from overdosing?”

With a sigh, Dave sat up and turned to face Karthik, bending one knee up onto the couch so he was turned sideways. “It means, I got a sleeping pill prescription and it helped for a while. And then it didn’t help so much, so I figured, maybe I’ll just take one and a half. And then when _that_ stopped helping, I started taking two. You see where this is going?” His voice was bitter. “So imagine my surprise when one day I woke up in the hospital instead of my bed, because Rose had a _feeling_ and called my PA.”

“You ODed?”

“Yeah. It was a mistake—like, I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I took four pills and then woke up a little while later and thought I hadn’t taken any, so I took a bunch more, and then, hospital.”

Karthik shifted uncomfortably, not meeting Dave’s eyes. “And a doctor prescribed you more?”

“I have so many aliases,” Dave said, waving a hand. “And where fake IDs fail, money always succeeds.”

“So you’re an addict,” his roommate said, and there was a strange note to his voice, something like… vindication?

“No,” Dave said. “I am not an addict.”

Karthik raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like addiction to me.”

“I take them twice a week!” Dave insisted, incredulous that he would accuse him of addiction. Maybe before, when he had been taking them every night, but…. He had it under control now. He said as much, getting irritated when Karkat scoffed. “What do you want me to do? Take them every night again? Stop sleeping altogether?”

“Maybe there’s another option,” Karthik pointed out. “There are plenty of discreet rehab centers in LA—”

“Absolutely not,” Dave said. “Can we just… drop it? If I start taking them more often, or more of them at a time, I promise I will let you check me in to the poshest and most celebrity-friendly rehab center, and suffer the inevitable leak and damage to my reputation that will happen anyway.”

Karthik regarded him seriously for a moment, then shrugged and said, “Your food’s getting cold.”

Dave only took one pill that night, and was surprised when it worked almost as well as two.

\--------

Over the next month, Dave adjusted his routine. Every other night he took one pill, and most of the time this was enough to knock him out for at least five hours or so. The other nights, he worked through the night just like before, but with significantly more sleep overall, he found himself more alert and less cranky. He didn’t tell Karthik about the change, but he was taking his only prescribed dosage now, and not even every night, so surely that was fine. Several doctors had approved this dosage for nightly use. Ha. Who was an addict now?

To Dave’s surprise, the press had still not caught on to the fact that Karthik was living with him. Other gossip about him made the papers. His favorite was a revitalized rumor that he and Rose were secretly lovers, since they had appeared together at the Marquise Gala, a fundraiser for funding research into muscular dystrophy disorders. Never mind that they went together every year and donated a large sum between them, and that it sparked the same rumors every year with no other supporting evidence. _Mysterious Novelist Dating Dave Strider?_ asked the cover of every gossip rag in one form or another. Dave bought them all, as he did every year, and sent copies to Rose, who sent back a picture of herself burning them.

Now that he was actually sleeping somewhat regularly, he started pestering Karthik to do fun things with him on weekends. They couldn’t work _all_ the time, he argued, and it only took a little bit of cajoling to get his roommie to cave. This, Dave discovered, was in part because the past weekend had been Karthik’s birthday, which he had neglected to mention. Dave told him to buy himself some hiking boots, and that Saturday they drove about two hours out to Dave’s favorite hiking trail in Angeles National Forest. There were a few people there, but in hiking clothes, a sun hat, and douchebag shades, Dave was pretty sure he’d be unrecognizable. Nobody really expected to run into some hotshot movie director in the middle of their peaceful hiking trip.

Dave had brought his nice camera and they started down the trail to the waterfalls. It was a long enough trail that casual hikers and families tended not to take it, especially because there were other falls—albeit less impressive—closer to the edge of the forest. The weather was warm, the shade cool, their packs light, and Dave knew the second he saw Karthik’s face open up in delight and awe at the sight of the waterfalls that Dave was falling for him

He raised his camera to capture the look on Karthik’s face, dark lashes batting up against brown skin, eyes wide and staring ahead. Dave stayed back while Karthik set down his pack and climbed closer to the falls, reaching his hand out to feel the spray as he got closer. Dave snapped more pictures, captivated by Karthik’s captivation.

“Are you going to swim?” Karthik asked tentatively, pulling Dave from his reverie.

They had brought bathing suits and water shoes at Dave’s insistence. The pool at the bottom of the waterfall, Dave knew from experience, was cold but not so cold to be prohibitive to swimming.

Dave nodded. “Be right there, just wanna take a few more shots.”

Karthik kicked off his hiking boots and stripped off his pants and shirt, wearing just his swim trunks. Dave almost groaned with desire, loving the sight of all that smooth skin, the gentle muscles, the collar bones moving just under the skin as Karthik stretched a little. The camera clicked rapidly, catching the range of motion as Karthik bent to get his water shoes from his pack, the look on his face as he glanced up and saw Dave aiming the camera at him.

“Dude! What the fuck?”

Dave lowered the camera. “It was a good shot, so sue me,” he tossed back, keeping his voice light. But he put the camera down and stripped to his own swim trunks, then added a new layer of sunscreen to his already extra-sunscreened self. “Before you get in,” he called over his shoulder, “can you get my back? I burn like bread in a shitty toaster that only has a ‘black and nasty’ setting.”

Karthik ambled over and took the sunscreen.

“I mean, you know the kind,” Dave said, glad he was facing away as he leaned forward a bit so Karthik could get his whole back. He tensed, waiting for the touch of cold sunscreen. “Those little silver ones that cost like fifteen dollars at the grocery store? I mean even on the lowest settings those things just _blacken_ toast, even frozen bread goes from rock solid to burnt before you can even think to cancel it and pop it up—”

“Dave, shut up.”

Dave did, but not because Karthik said to—rather, the feel of calloused fingers under the cold, smooth sunscreen sent a little gasp to his lips. Shit, he really _was_ falling for Karthik. He had not expected this. He did not even want this. He closed his eyes and berated himself for loving the feel of the hands running over his back, rubbing the cream in thoroughly.

Soon enough it was over and Karthik handed him back the sunscreen, and Dave was sure he saw a tiny little smirk on those brown lips. Shit, his face must have been a mess. He could just picture himself, wide-eyed like a fucking child, cheeks hot, staring at Karthik’s fucking lips. He turned away quickly, wishing he could crawl into a hole and disappear.

“…Dave?”

“What? Sorry, I spaced out.”

“I asked if you need to wait a few minutes for that to absorb in before we get in.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’d be best. You can go ahead.”

Karthik shrugged. “I’d rather wait. Want a snack?”

They munched apples and cashews, sitting side by side on the rocks next to the pool. A group of hikers arrived, stopping to take pictures of the falls and exchanging a few pleasant words with Dave and Karthik. The folks had heavy equipment with them, though, so Dave asked if they were heading further in to camp in the forest. They confirmed, and only spent a few minutes dipping their feet into the cool water before waving farewell and moving on toward their campsite.

Karthik slid forward off the rock and into the pool as soon as they had rounded the corner. Dave watched him shudder as the cold water came to his waist, then walked around to the other edge where the water was deep, and jumped in, curling his feet up under him to make sure he didn’t hit the bottom.

“Of course you would fucking canon ball into the goddamn water,” Karthik growled as Dave reemerged, shaking his blond hair out. He had splashed enough onto Karthik that he was now better off submerging himself quickly, so he pushed off forward and dipped his head underwater as he swam forward. Dave was treading water in the deep area of the pool, so he flipped himself onto his back and floated peacefully, his douchebag shades still in place thanks to their ironic lanyard.

Karthik surfaced right next to him and dunked him by the chest underwater. Dave flailed, spluttering as water filled his mouth and nose for a second before he got control of his reflexes and calmed down. Karthik was not holding him under, so he came up and went straight for the other man’s shoulders, pushing him down under the surface. Karthik went smoothly, apparently expecting this response, and wrapped his arms around Dave’s waist from underwater, pulling him down, too.

Dave squirmed, unable to kick without accidentally kicking Karthik, so he tried to twist out of his grip instead. No luck. Karthik kept his grip and kicked up and forward until they had both surfaced, facing each other as Dave slid back down inside the circle of his arms so his feet touched the bottom next to Karthik’s.

Dave didn’t really think about it, just leaned forward and kissed Karthik because yeah, he was _right there_ , and so beautiful with his wet hair glistening in the sunshine.

And it was… nice, so nice, nicer than he remembered kisses with other people, soft and slow and warm.

When Karthik pulled away, Dave felt his stomach drop. _Oh god oh god he’s gonna hate me now, why did I kiss him, I don’t even know if he—_

“Holy shit,” Karthik breathed.

 _Oh shit he hates me._ “Shit,” Dave agreed, pulling his hands away from Karthik’s shoulders to run them through his hair, trying to step back, but just like before, Karthik’s hold on his waist kept him in place.

“Dave,” Karthik said, one hand opening up and pressing flat against the small of Dave’s back. “Relax a little.”

“Relax, yeah, right, that’s what I’m doing, look at me, the king of relaxation, not even a little bit tense or aware of your hand, shit, what, don’t listen to me—”

Karthik laughed softly. “I never do when you’re rambling, but maybe I should.” His hand trailed a few inches up and down Dave’s spine. “Aware of my hands, huh?”

Oh, shit. Was he… was he coming onto him? Was this a come on? Here Dave was thinking he had completely fucked things up, but Karthik was _teasing_ him, trying to fluster him more. Dave knew if he opened his mouth, he’d make a fool of himself again (because when didn’t he?), so he took his chances and put his lips to better use.

This time Karthik was ready, and his tongue flicked against Dave’s lip, so the kiss deepened and climbed a bit in intensity, and Dave shuddered as Karthik’s hand traced the length of his back to rest on the back of his neck. Yep, this was it, he could die right now and he would die happy.

Voices carried their way—hikers coming up the trail. Reluctantly Dave pulled away from Karthik, ducking himself underwater and kicking back and away, towards the deeper side once more. The cool water put out the fire in his cheeks a bit and he surfaced face up, bringing his legs upward so that he once more floated on his back. Though his ears were underwater, he was vaguely aware of Karthik greeting the hikers. Dave pulled his head up and looked over at the group—a family, two teenagers and their parents.

“Oh my god!” shrieked the older teen, and that was all Dave needed to know he’d been made. “Dave Strider?!”

“Nope!” he yelled. “Definitely not.”

“Oh my god!” she repeated, only more convinced. “Can I get your autograph? Holy shit! Casey will be so mad, she’ll never believe this!”

Dave sighed and rolled onto his stomach, then ducked his head into the water and did a lazy breaststroke to the shallow side of the pool. As he stood, he raked a hand through his hair, shaking out the worst of the moisture and arranging it in a semblance of order. He gave the girl and her gaping family a smirk and a peace sign while she snapped a photo with the clunky digital piece of shit hanging around her neck, then asked, “What do you want me to sign?”

She snatched her backpack off her shoulders and rummaged desperately for a pen. Dave never took a pen on hikes, so he was skeptical, but she had a sketchbook and some pencils and produced them for him. He grabbed his towel first so he wouldn’t get water on her sketch book.

“What’s your name, darlin’?” he asked, sketching quickly.

“Maria!” she squealed.

The quick sketch was Dave in his swim trunks and Maria with her sun hat, fist-bumping. He wrote, “Eat shit, Casey,” above it, then, “To Maria, for seeing through the lies” underneath and signed it. 

Finally, the girl’s mother stepped in. “Maria, honey, I’m sure Mr. Strider and his friend are just trying to enjoy their swim. You’ve bothered them enough.”

But Dave was out of the pool now, towel wrapped around his shoulder. “Very kind of you, miss, but it’s no problem. Were y’all headed further upstream?”

“Actually, this was our destination,” Maria’s father said, setting his pack down and offering Dave his hand. “Jerry Davies, Mr. Strider. We had hoped to let the kids swim a bit, too.”

Dave saw Karthik stepping out of the water and starting to dry off now, so he nodded. “We were just leaving,” he said.

“Don’t let us run you off,” Jerry said. “We won’t bother you if you want to stay.”

“No, really, we’ve been in long enough,” Karthik interjected, stepping up beside Dave and dropping a hand casually on his shoulder. Holy _shit,_ was Karthik being protective? The gesture didn’t go unnoticed by Jerry or his wife and daughters. Maria, still holding her camera, snapped another picture, then suffered her mother’s scolding tsk. “Let’s be on our way, Dave.”

“Yeah,” Dave agreed, trying not to look as stunned as he felt. They gathered their things and hiked up the hill a bit to get some privacy to change back into their dry clothes, facing away from each other as they quickly shed their trunks and pulled on dry underwear, then pants. Once they were dressed and their water gear wrung out as much as possible and stowed in plastic bags, they made their way back to the trail and waved goodbye to Maria and her family as they passed the pool once more.

“So much for the media not knowing about you. Happy belated birthday, welcome to the world of celebrity,” Dave muttered.

“Aw, you think Jerry and his little crew back there are going to run to tell the tabloids about your hot swimming rendezvous?”

“You saw her snap that picture of us,” Dave answered. “That’s going to be posted to some shitty ‘Dave Strider sightings’ fan page as soon as she gets to a computer, and from there it’ll be on every tabloid and gossip magazine.” He sighed mournfully. “So much for these being my best incognito shades. I’ll have to find another shitty style to hide behind.”


	4. Somewhere Between Keeping Cool and Losing Cool

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay bonus chapter! Alas, the good times never last.

Sure enough, the day after their hiking trip, Dave woke up (woke up? Had he fallen asleep? He didn’t remember taking a pill, but maybe he had?) to the phone ringing at 7:32 am. “What?” he mumbled, still sleepy.

His publicist immediately launched into a screeching rant about how hard he made her life, why didn’t he just _tell_ her he was dating someone so she had an idea of what was coming, did he know how annoying it was to have to deal with these things as emergencies.

“Freddie, seriously,” he said, dropping his face back into his pillow. “This couldn’t have waited until, say, 9:00 when normal people are awake on a Sunday?”

“Whatever, Strider, you’re never asleep,” she snapped back. Then a pause. “Oh, shit. Were you asleep?”

He groaned. His being an insomniac had certainly trained his people to have no regard for the hour when they needed something from him, but the one time he was actually sleeping peacefully…. “Never mind, I’m awake now. What happened?”

She told him that she had seen the picture on a fan site, exactly like he had predicted, this morning when she had started her normal routine of scanning her clients’ sites for anything that would need to be addressed. “So of course I hurried down to the kiosk on my corner, and sure enough, you and that hot Indian guy are plastered on the front of every tabloid, Strider.” She made a strangled noise of frustration. “Why don’t you people ever warn me when you’re going to let some random fan take a picture like that? Do you live to see my discomfort?”

“Freddie, baby, I’m gonna need you to take a deep breath and chill out. It’s just me and my bro—”

“Your bro, who has his arm on your shoulder, standing there like male models in swimsuits, at a remote swimming pool in the middle of a national forest, Dave!” She was back to the screeching. Dave held the phone receiver away from his ear and cringed as she went on. “Just you and your bro! Honestly, have you seen the picture? Nobody is going to believe anything short of the most romantic story you can dream up for why you two were up in the mountains for a tryst!”

7:37. She had gone five whole minutes of complaining about something he’d done in public without her permission without mentioning the word ‘brand’ once. 

“And you look so lovesick, and you’re not even wearing the right shades! What will this do to the brand?” she bemoaned. Ah well. Five minutes was still a record. (For more on branding and irony, see Strider 2006, p. 22). “Dave, you had better be prepared to be _so in love_ with that guy that we can have you drop the irony thing for one minute in an interview, or fans are going to—”

Dave didn’t find out what fans were going to do because he saw some movement from the corner of his eye and glanced toward the hallway. “Dave?” Karthik asked from the doorway. “What’s going on?”

“Freddie, let’s deal with this later, okay?” he said, cutting her off. When she started screeching again about how unbelievable he was, did he even _know_ what she was going to have to do to keep the media off his back, he hung up.

He buried his face in his pillow and let out a long, rumbling whine. The phone rang loudly in his hand so he tossed it away without answering.

“Can I… come in?” Karthik asked, voice uncertain. Dave still had his face buried so he just flapped his hand in what he hoped would be interpreted as a “do whatever you want” gesture. Both his cell phone _and_ the landline were ringing now. He ignored them, instead pretended that there was no world beyond his pillow, his pillow was everything, so soft and warm and maybe if he never moved his face he would just suffocate.

His stomach flipped as he felt the bed dip a little when Karthik sat himself down on the edge. Then his stomach did some Olympic-level tumbling shit when a gentle hand smoothed his hair, the touch so light as to almost not be there. Dave held still, not wanting to scare off the hesitating touch, and this seemed to reassure Karthik, whose next sweep of his hair was firmer, fingers nestling in a little and brushing his scalp, too. The landline fell silent for all of three seconds before it started to ring again. His cell phone hadn’t stopped.

On his third sweep of Dave’s hair, Karthik tugged just a little, coaxing Dave to turn his head. Dave let him, his face rotating on the pillow so that instead of smothering himself, he was looking sideways at Karthik.

Karthik went still as their eyes met, and Dave was afraid he’d done something wrong, but before he could do much more than frown in concern, Karthik said, “You have red eyes?”

Oh, right. Was this the first time he’d seen him without shades? “Yep, devil child, that’s me.”

The hair stroking resumed. “Don’t be ridiculous.” A new chime on his cell phone—that was his personal assistant calling. She never called his cell unless she couldn’t get through on the landline, which made sense because the landline was still ringing. “Can’t you turn off the ringer if you’re not going to answer that?” Karthik asked.

Dave was about to respond when a third, unfamiliar ringtone started to tinkle. What was that—oh shit. He scrambled frantically over Karthik’s lap to get into the drawer of his nightstand, to the burner cell phone he kept charged there, not wanting to miss this call.

“Rose?” he asked immediately, instead of answering with the usual greeting.

“Pick up your phone, Dave,” she said urgently.

“What? I just did.”

“Dave, _listen_. Pick up your normal cell phone. Say yes. Don’t fight them.”

“What the hell are you talking about, don’t fight who?”

“Dave! _Pick up your cell phone right now!_ ”

She hung up. His cell phone rang, once again the ringtone he had set for his PA.

“Shit!” he said, scrambling again in the bed to try to find the cell phone, which had been eaten by the sheets and blankets. “Where’s my cell?”

Karthik helped him look and they found the phone just in time for Dave to answer. “Abigail? What is it?”

“Mr. Strider,” she said, sounding relieved. “I know you prefer I use the landline, but I couldn’t get through, and—”

“It’s fine, Abigail. What’s wrong?”

“There are two cars with Crockercorp employees waiting at the gate, Mr. Strider. Should I… should I let them in?”

Dave was silent for a moment, mind reeling. Crockercorp? What the hell was the Baroness doing, sending her minions to his home? _Say yes,_ Rose had said. _Don’t fight them._

Resisting the urge to disregard his sister, he swallowed his instinctive “hell no” and said, “Yes.”

“If you say so, Mr. Strider.” Bless her heart, she sounded so uncertain. Abigail was not a fool; the anti-Crockercorp messages in his movies had not been lost on her.

“I do say so, Abigail, thank you. And if you’re on the phone with them, tell them I’ll be down in five minutes.”

“Yes, sir. Anything else?”

“That’s all, thank you.”

He hung up and looked at Karthik, nervous and a little scared. This was the first time the batterwitch had sent anyone to talk to him directly anywhere other than at his work office. At work, it was always so falsely professional—can’t we see the script, help with production costs, wouldn’t you like to team up with Crockercorp for a SBaHJ-themed communications technology line. Betty sending agents to his own front door felt like a huge slip of the faux-professional façade to their relationship. Knowing that one day she would kill him made that slip feel like a noose around his neck.

“What is it?” Karthik asked, tense.

“Crockercorp,” Dave answered, pushing himself out of bed and dressing himself in the first suit he found—black, formal, boring. “They sent cars.” Black dress shirt was on and buttoned. Pants came up. “They’re waiting downstairs for me.”

Karthik hissed. “And you’re just… going to them?”

“Rose said to go,” Dave answered, looping a belt on and buckling it, then reaching for a tie. His hand hesitated over a white tie, but Karthik reached over his shoulder and grabbed a red silk one instead. Dave raised an eyebrow at him, but nodded.

Karthik flipped up the collar of his shirt and looped the tie around his neck. Dave had never had anyone else tie his tie before, and it was a very strange sensation, watching Karthik’s long, elegant fingers flip the material this way and that. He held very still until the process was finished, not sure what else to do. Finally, Karthik flipped the collar down on his shirt again and nestled the knot up into the gap between the points.

On impulse, Dave grabbed Karthik’s sweatshirt and pulled him close for a kiss. “We have to talk about this,” he said when they parted. “After.” Without waiting for an answer, he snatched up his phone from the bed and shrugged on his suit coat, double checking that his hair looked reasonable in the mirror before turning to leave.

“Dave,” Karthik called. Dave stopped and looked back. Karthik was holding up his shades. “Forgot something?”

Dave took the shades, settled them on his face, and nodded. “How’s that?” he asked, spreading his arms to give Karthik the full view.

Karthik smirked. “Better,” he said, then tilted his head and amended, “Hot.”

Dave grinned, but it was a vicious grin, the kind a warrior might give his enemy before striking. “Good.”

Karthik trailed him to the doorway, but Dave gestured for him to hang back. If Crockercorp didn’t know that they were roommates yet, he wanted to keep it that way. He checked to make sure his sword was ready to go, flashing it in and out of the specibus twice (the second time because its weight was a comfort), then—empty-handed once again, Rose’s words echoing in his mind, _don’t fight them_ —he threw open the door to face his enemy.

\-----------

“Mr. Strider. Thank you for meeting us on short notice.”

Dave kept his face Strider blank, nodding once and accepting the outstretched hand for a firm shake. The woman before him was dark-skinned, her hair pulled back in a severe bun that highlighted just how striking her high cheekbones and almond eyes were. She wore a black suit with a pencil skirt over skin-tone hose and black pumps.

“My name is Amanda Friedman,” she introduced herself. “These are my associates, Ryan Ulritch—” a handshake exchanged with a corpulent older white man “—Gina King—” a handshake with a frizzy-haired smiling woman “—and Darryl O’Brien.” A handshake with a tall, fit man. They were all dressed like Amanda: professional and serious.

“What brings you to my home this early on a Sunday? No mass to attend to worship your Baroness?”

Amanda smiled tightly. “On the contrary, what better way to show our devotion to Her Imperious Condescension than by carrying out her wishes this fine morning?” Dave suppressed a shudder. Her Imperious Condescension? That was a new one. He’d have to tell Rose—maybe they could pick up some internet chatter about the new title and get ahead of something for once.

“So you represent, what, her missionary team? Converting the masses to batter worship?”

“Nothing so mundane, I assure you,” Amanda replied calmly. “Where is your friend Mr. Vanda?”

Dave shrugged. “‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’” he quipped, pleased that he came up with a Biblical reference so fast, given his accusation that the witch was trying to make people worship her.

“We’ll talk about your brother soon enough,” she said, and Dave frowned. He didn’t have a brother. Just Rose. “But I believe even you would find it against your moral codes, however dubious those may be, to do _this_ with your sibling?” She gestured and Gina handed him a photo of himself and Karthik kissing in the waterfall pool yesterday.

 _That_ succeeded in upsetting him—a single shake of his hand made it past his cool filter before he had his body tightly under control again. He doubted anyone noticed; there was enough of a breeze that the wobble of the photograph could have been caused by that. But inside was another story. Fucking _fuck_ , how had they followed them into the forest without him knowing? If they had pulled that off, they could have followed him to Fresno months ago, could have information on Rose and the others, holy shit holy shit holy shit.

Instead of saying any of this, Dave smirked. “Hot,” he said approvingly of the photograph, handing it back to Gina. “Didn’t know y’all had your voyeur kink up in my business, but I’ve never minded a bit of exhibitionism. Still, it’s nice to ask a lady first.”

Amanda blinked at him impassively, then said, “Will you take a ride with us, Mr. Strider?”

 _Say yes,_ Rose urged him in his head.

“Why did you bring two cars?” he asked, delaying the inevitable.

Amanda raised her hand without looking and waved. Four people emerged from the other vehicle and Dave knew just by looking at their stances and clothing that these were fighters. “Just in case,” Amanda said, “you weren’t so cordial.”

Dave spread his hands. “Doll, you misread me if you think I’d spill your blood on my front porch, what with you coming here all on behalf of, what was it, Her Imperious Condescension. I’m naught but her loyal, number one fan.”

Amanda smiled unpleasantly. “So it would seem. A ride, Mr. Strider?” she asked again, pointedly.

Dave followed her into the back of the limo that wasn’t full of goons. Gina, Ryan, and Darryl joined them, then the driver circled away from the house and back down the long driveway to the gate, where the two limos turned together toward Hollywood.

“Where are we going?” Dave asked, nervous about leaving Karthik behind. What if they were only pretending to believe Dave didn’t know where he was, and had just done this to lure him away? _Trust Rose,_ he told himself. _She wouldn’t have told you not to fight if Kathik was in danger._

“Why, for breakfast, of course,” Amanda said casually, and offered no more comment than this. Dave’s initial confusion turned into a terrible sinking feeling when they pulled up outside Butler’s, where his favorite server Lucy worked. He knew it wasn’t coincidence, but he didn’t want to let them see how shaken he was—that’s what they wanted. They wanted to shake him.

“They have the best hash browns here,” he said, nodding approvingly of the choice. Dave saw Amanda’s mouth tighten a little in annoyance and barely kept a smirk from his face. Good. He had to keep her on her toes.

Apparently only Gina made the cut for breakfast, because Darryl and Ryan didn’t follow them into the diner. Everyone was already staring when they came in, having noticed the limos pull up. Lucy was there—shit. She didn’t work every Sunday but Dave knew that she sometimes picked up shifts for sick or otherwise absent coworkers to help make ends meet. She met his eyes, her own wide, and he carefully kept his expression blank. No doubt the Crockercorp bastards already knew he had a special attachment to her, but he didn’t need everyone in the diner to make that connection, too.

“…Dave Strider?” someone said finally. Dave looked to the source of the question in time to see the young man get a mortified smack on the arm from his dining companion, who was blushing furiously.

“Hey, y’all,” he said. “Don’t let us interrupt your breakfasts.”

Lucy bustled over. “W–welcome,” she stuttered, glancing between Dave and the two Crockercorp women nervously. “Table, uh.” She cleared her throat. “Table for three?”

The spell broke and a buzz immediately started up around the tables, whispers behind hands and furtive, wide-eyed glances. What was _Dave Strider_ doing at Butler’s? Why was he dressed so nice? Who were those women? Did you see that picture of him on _US Weekly_ this morning? Do you think he’ll autograph something for me? He saw more than one camera phone peeking out from under the tables, despite their owners’ best efforts to be covert.

“Three, yes,” Amanda confirmed. Lucy pulled three menus from the bin and invited them to follow her to a table. Dave was relieved that she had not greeted him more familiarly. Maybe the Crockercorp ladies would think they had made a mistake in whatever they had assumed about Dave’s attachment to her. He felt like shit though. Here was the one human on the planet besides Rose and Karthik that he felt really connected to, and he was acting like the aloof, distant celebrity. Would she think he thought she was only worth his affection when he was dressed down and pretending not to be famous? That he thought she was too ordinary for Dave Strider to notice or care about?

“Can I get you some coffee?” Lucy asked as she handed them each a menu.

“Decaf for me,” Dave said, thinking fast. Would she remember?

Her pen froze above her little pad for a second, but she recovered quickly and wrote that down. “Sure thing, sugar,” she said. _Good, Lucy, bless you. Be careful._ “And for you, ma’am?” Gina and Amanda both ordered regular coffees.

“I’ll let you look over the menu for a minute while I get your coffees. If you have any questions, my name is Lucy.”

Dave lounged back casually in his chair, brushing some errant hair out of his face. He should have taken an extra minute to put some gel in it. “So, Amanda, Gina. Care to tell me why you’ve roused me from bed on a Sunday just to take me to my favorite dive? Don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered, but usually it takes a few dates for me to agree to let you pay.” Of course, they had made no offer to pay, but no, hell no, he was not paying for this.

“We want to know what you know about Karthik Vanda.”

If his guard weren’t already up as high as it would go…. He raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

Amanda folded her napkin primly as she looked down her nose at the menu. “Let’s say… he’s a person of interest to Crockercorp.”

“What? Why? He’s just some scrawny guy from Seattle looking to make it big in show biz.”

Amanda shrugged. “Perhaps. So you know he moved here from Seattle.”

“Yeah,” he drawled, “he told me a bit about his time up there. Worked for a software company, right?”

“You would know better than us, surely,” Amanda said. Damn. It felt like playing chess, but with deadly stakes.

Dave spread his hands in a gesture of indifference. “I don’t know what you want from me,” he said honestly. “It’s not like I know Vanda that well anymore. We were roommates after college in Texas for a few months before I made it big.”

This actually got an eyebrow raised from Amanda. Dave was really glad he had remembered to send Neco a request for his hacker friend to falsify some rent documents under one of his older aliases and Karthik’s name from 1999. Karthik had actually lived in a friend’s house with no paper trail for the time in question, so nothing else would turn up if someone searched. And someone would search. No doubt some Crockercorp drone was listening to this conversation at this very moment, sending the orders for someone to dig up Karthik’s rental history.

“And?”

“And what?” Dave countered.

The conversation halted when Lucy returned with coffee and asked for their food orders. Dave asked for a Belgian waffle with strawberries and a side of hash browns. Amanda got a fruit bowl (of course she did, he thought sneeringly. She was exactly the kind of person who would go to a dive diner and order fruit), and Gina got a bacon and Swiss omelet. 

“Were the two of you… close… back then?” Amanda asked, one corner of her mouth twitching up mockingly on the word ‘close’ in a way that made Dave seriously consider punching her.

But the Strider cool did not crack.

“Nah,” he drawled, sipping his (disgusting) decaf. Okay, it wasn’t disgusting, it tasted basically the same. But seriously, what was the point of coffee without caffeine? “Just two starving kids who needed cheaper rent.”

“And how did you two reconnect when he moved to LA?”

Dave figured now was a good time to push back a little. He sat forward, hands folding on the table in front of him. “Why do you care? He’s just a random guy I took a hike with.”

“It so happens,” Gina cut in, and was that—yes, that was definitely the smallest twitch of annoyance from Amanda—“that we would very much like to talk to Karthik. His software engineering skills are of interest to Crockercorp, you see, and we had rather hoped you might be able to help us get in touch.”

Well, that was a load a bull. Never mind all of the other reasons he had to not believe that, why would Amanda be asking personal questions about the history of their relationship if they just wanted to offer the guy a job. He almost said, _You could have just called my secretary about that,_ but stopped himself. Gina didn’t expect him to believe her, but she was giving him an opening. She was trying a different approach than Amanda had wanted to take, and Dave playing along could cause some friction between them, open the door for him to get some extra information.

“Oh,” he said, sitting back again. “Well, he is looking for a job. I could pass along your business card, Ms. King, if you’d like.”

Gina smiled broadly. “Surely you could give us his phone number or address so we can drop a line ourselves,” she said sweetly. “We at Crockercorp do prefer a… _personal_ touch.”

Dave smiled, too, the first expression he had let onto his face since answering the door earlier that morning. Amanda _definitely_ looked bitter now. Now Dave went for flirty. “Gina!” he said, playfully scolding her. “A girl should never kiss and tell,” he continued in a low voice, waggling his eyebrows at her. “I know _you_ wouldn’t just give your hot date’s digits out to the first person who asked. We classy ladies have more tact than that.”

Gina giggled and Dave snickered a little—insincerely, of course, but insincerity was the Dave Strider brand, so it went unnoticed.

Lucy delivered their food and Dave carried on the charming act, light-heartedly trying to steal some of Gina’s omelet, giving her an innocent look when she fended off his fork with a scandalized look that quickly melted into more giggles. Either Gina was actually an airhead, which Dave doubted, or she was exceptionally good at meeting him at his level of the ironic flirting game (the Treatise [Strider 2006, you know the drill by now] discusses ironic flirting in footnote 69).

But it wasn’t Gina he was worried about, it was Amanda, and _she_ clearly thought Gina was an airhead. Dave knew there was a chance they had planned this, some kind of stern-Crockercorp-bitch, flirty-Crockercorp-bitch team act to get his defenses down. But if Amanda was actually getting annoyed….

“Mr. Strider,” she said, an edge to her voice. “I assure you, Crockercorp has nothing but your best interest at heart when we tell you that associating with Karthik Vanda could be dangerous. Your cooperation in helping us locate Mr. Vanda so we can make sure he is not, in fact, a threat to you and others in Los Angeles, would be most appreciated by the Condesce. Surely, you wouldn’t mind… _sweetening_ your relationship with her.”

Dave’s face was immediately blank again as he snapped his attention back to Amanda. “Just want to give him a job? Yeah.” He shook his head, set down his fork, and stood. “I think we’re done here, Ms. Friedman. Will your driver be taking me home, or should I call mine?”

“Sit down, Mr. Strider,” Amanda said, her calm exterior marred by a snappish tone.

“No,” he answered, all earlier joking aside. “The Baroness can’t offer me any reward that I can’t get for myself, and I have no interest in turning Karthik over to you, nor anyone else besides. You’re a corporation, not gods, and while I don’t particularly want to pick a fight with dear Betty—” lies, he did, he _really_ did “—I also see no need to… sweeten my relationship with her.”

“I’m sure you would see that differently,” Amanda growled quietly, “if you would consider how much Her Imperious Condescension could do for dear Lucy and her sweet children.”

Every muscle in Dave’s body was tense, adrenaline pounding into his bloodstream as he met her eyes through his shades. “Is that a threat on innocent children, Ms. Friedman?” he asked icily.

“Hardly. A promise to help them, in return for your help,” she answered smoothly, pleased that she had gotten even a small reaction from him by way of his cold tone.

He snorted. “Sure. Lucy doesn’t need your… help, and I’m sure enterprising ladies such as yourselves don’t need mine to track down every software engineer who gets your panties in a bunch. Thanks for breakfast. Gina, lovely to meet you.”

He spun on his heel and left. When he emerged without Gina and Amanda in tow, Ryan and Darryl got out of the car immediately. Darryl grabbed Dave’s arm and pulled him to the car ( _don’t fight them, don’t fight them, don’t fight them_ ) while Ryan hurried inside to consult with Amanda about what had happened. 

Dave shrugged off Darryl’s hand but let himself be guided back to the car. They waited for a few minutes before Ryan returned and got in, then tapped on the driver’s window. Apparently Amanda and Gina would not be joining them for the return trip.

“It isn’t wise to upset the Condesce,” Darryl said mildly.

“It speaks,” Dave muttered, not looking at him.

“In a few years, when she brings the Dark Carnival to this planet in earnest,” Darryl continued, finally drawing Dave’s alarmed attention, “you will regret this day.” His eye glinted with a kind of manic energy that deeply unsettled Dave.

“Soon enough, Darryl,” Ryan said with a smirk. “He’ll see sense.”

When they finally got to the house, Dave texted Abigail to open the gate so that there was no chance anyone would see the code as he punched it in. After handing him a business card with three different numbers to call for “when you change your mind,” they dropped him off at the front door, and the two men just smiled creepily at him as he got out of the car and closed the door. He stood tall in front of his door, daring them to come at him, wanting a fight, some release of this adrenaline and fight-or-flight reflex coursing through him, but the car just did its circle and drove away. When he confirmed with Abigail that the gate was secure again, he let himself in to his house, closed the door, and collapsed against it.

Shaking violently from the release of adrenaline and tension, he slid to the ground. Karthik and Lucy were in danger, one if he turned Karthik in, the other if he didn’t. What was he going to do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Figured I'd post two because I've gotten pretty ahead and I just want everyone to know what happens. It's more fun sharing it...!
> 
> Comments are the best!


	5. Somewhere Between Rock and Bottom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to post with notes because life is busy. Please be aware that this chapter gets a bit heavy regarding Dave's drug abuse.

In retrospect, there were many things Dave should have done, but did not.

He should have called Rose right away and gotten her advice. He should have told Karthik immediately about what had happened and together they could have brainstormed ideas. He should have given Lucy a million dollars and told her to go away somewhere quiet with the kids. He should have hired bodyguards for the diner. He should have given the batterwitch a false address and then feigned ignorance when Karthik wasn’t there.

Instead, he fended off Karthik’s concern when his roommate found him shaking like a leaf in the foyer, shut the bedroom door behind him, stripped down to his boxers, and took three sleeping pills.

This began what was the first of three stages of Dave’s life spiraling out of control (though, in keeping with the retrospective tone here, it might be more honest to say “spiraling _more_ out of control”).

He went to work every morning still hazy from the too-high dose of drugs, again. After a few days, he and Karthik got into one of those fights where the yelling and finger pointing and frustrated gesturing would have alarmed the neighbors, if Dave had neighbors close enough to alarm. Karthik stormed into Dave’s room and snatched the pill bottle from his bedside table, and Dave barely stopped himself from physically preventing Karthik from dumping them down the toilet.

It didn’t matter. He had more bottles stashed away in his bedroom and office.

Things took on a distinct chill at the Strider estate after that. Dave was furious that Karthik would try to control his medication usage like that. Karthik was furious that Dave had more pills hidden and was not even pretending to cut back. Dave had a lot of experience making work-related things go smoothly despite the increased use of the sleeping pills, so production began on the next SBaHJ film with no trouble, and Dave used it as an excuse to stay at work for even longer hours. Karthik spent more of his time away from the estate, so that some days Dave had already knocked himself out before he got home and they didn’t even see each other.

This went on for two weeks.

It was a Wednesday night and Dave did not expect anything different when he walked in the house and hung up the keys to whichever car he had taken today. He didn’t even know or care. So far nothing had happened to Lucy or Karthik and he was starting to feel less paranoid about the Baroness snatching one or both of them up in her clutches. The fact remained that Karthik didn’t give him a damn minute of attention that wasn’t accusatory statements about addiction and ruining his liver, so he had no particular desire to seek his roommate out tonight, even if the original cause of the blow-up (to Dave’s mind) had settled a bit.

But Karthik was waiting for him, and it was clear he had been crying.

Dave frowned. “What’s going on?” he asked, his tone wary and sharp; he was suspicious that this was about the pills, and really did not want to get into it tonight.

Karthik opened his mouth, closed it. Fresh tears spilled over his eyes, and his shoulders shook. Dave’s suspicions dissipated and he felt a pang of shame for his selfishness while Karthik was obviously upset.

Dave reached a hand out tentatively, squeezed Karthik’s shoulder. Icy dread started to creep its way up from his stomach as Karthik let out a strangled sob and covered his face with his hands.

“Karthik, you’re freaking me out,” Dave said worryingly.

“It’s… it’s Terry,” he finally managed, then threw his arms around Dave and wept into his shoulder. “Oh god. God. They… they got her, Dave.”

His blood was pounding in his ears. There was too much going on. What? He wanted to hug Karthik back but the words “they got her” had him frozen in his spot. The world was spinning a bit, but everything was also fuzzy around the edges, like the details of the kitchen had been painted with cotton balls.

As if from very, very far away, Dave heard himself say, “What do you mean, ‘they got her’?”

“She… she was m-m-murdered in her… in her office today,” Karthik managed to sob out. “It m-made the news.”

Dave felt a bizarre and very, very wrong calmness. Like he had slipped out of his body and could not feel Karthik’s shuddering breath or shaking body, nor the stab of grief and disbelief that shot up his own spine. He noticed that his hands moved to Karthik’s shoulders to push him back, noticed that he moved past his grieving friend without a word, but it was like noticing someone else do these things. He felt like he was floating as he watched himself move to the TV room and click on the news. Karthik trailed behind him.

He waited twenty-two minutes for the stories to cycle back around to Terry, tunnel-visioned on the TV.

“In a shocking development in Texas, well-known human rights lawyer and activist Terry Pope was found murdered in her Dallas office today,” the anchor said, voice inflected with that stereotypical newscaster concern and shock. “Ms. Pope was well known for leading legal battles against Crockercorp, claiming that their Employee Betterment Program is an inhumane brainwashing plan. Outlandish though her claims may have been, Ms. Pope was well respected in her community for her tireless pro bono community work and unwavering advocacy for disabled workers. Police say her body was found by her secretary just after 4:00 pm today, her absence noted when she failed to arrive for a team meeting. Ms. Pope was stabbed seventeen times in the chest.”

The image cut to a police officer. “We don’t have any additional information at this time regarding the investigation,” the man said, “but the Dallas Police Department is doing everything in our power to catch the murderer. We have two teams of our best—”

Dave clicked it off.

Karthik clicked it back on. “You haven’t seen the worst yet.”

“…as the investigation continues,” finished up the officer.

Back to the anchor. “Perhaps most mysterious of the circumstances around Ms. Pope’s death was a note found slipped under her door when her secretary discovered the body. The secretary, Ms. Natalia Fernandez, told us that it said, ‘Lucy doesn’t matter to us.’”

Whatever had been happening to Dave where he felt detached from his body—whatever that had been stopped right there. He felt the world spin out from under him, felt the horrible shock and pain rake itself from his ears to his toes. They had threatened Lucy, but they had taken Terry. This was his fault.

Someone was talking to him. He looked at Karthik and heard noises but not words. It had been a trade, in the end. Karthik for Terry. It was his fault.

Why hadn’t he talked to Rose? Why had he just shut down like a fucking moron? He had been _tired? Anxious?_ That was his excuse for tranquilizing himself for two weeks? Tired and anxious was better than dead friends. Terry had deserved better, and he had stuck his head in the sand to Crockercorp’s threats and let himself drown it all out until she had died.

He didn’t deserve to live. But he sure as hell didn’t deserve the sweet reprieve that death would be.

Nor did he deserve to sleep. He wanted to, _god_ did he want to just go to his room and swallow a bottle of his sleeping pills and just… sleep. But that was too good for him.

This began the second phase of the downward spiral.

The withdrawal symptoms were awful, though Dave would never have called them that. He shut off the news and neglected to even talk to Karthik in the immediate aftermath of Terry’s death, unable to face him with the shame of knowing he was at fault, that he had not even told a single person about Crockercorp’s threats.

The next two days, he was so paranoid that he pulled his sword on Karthik twice and sliced up a pillow when it tumbled from the couch to the floor.

The third day he passed out in the garage and when he came to, he realized he hadn’t eaten anything in over thirty hours.

The fourth day he yelled at everyone at work and kicked everyone out of the studio where filming was supposed to be taking place. Stiller’s agent called a million times but he didn’t answer because it didn’t fucking matter.

The fifth day he had an honest-to-god hallucination. He was awake, at home, and he heard something crash out front. Wearing nothing more than boxers and a light morning robe, he rushed outside to "see" Crockercorp goons coming out of their cars with guns pointed at him, demanding to know where Karthik was or they would kill Rose. The sound of him shouting and slashing up the landscaping brought Karkat running.

This is what finally triggered The Talk.

“You need help, Dave,” Karthik said, and if Dave had been in his right mind, he would have noticed how deep the dark circles around his friend’s eyes had gotten, how sallow his skin looked. But Dave hadn’t slept more than a total of seven hours since learning of Terry’s death, and he didn’t notice anything except how fucking annoying Karthik’s voice was.

“Go to hell,” Dave snapped. “I’m not a goddamn burnout.”

“Dave—”

“Would you please just shut up and leave me alone? Sometimes insomnia makes me have waking dreams, it’s not a big deal.”

“That wasn’t the insomnia and you know it, fuckwad!” Karthik shouted. “You’re experiencing withdrawal symptoms from taking too many sleeping pills!”

“Too many sleeping pills is when you can’t function anymore, asshole, not when you sleep eight hours a night,” Dave yelled back. “I was taking enough to help me sleep.”

“You were taking enough to kill a horse!”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Dave sneered. “If it were enough to kill a horse, it would have definitely killed me.”

Karthik ran a hand through his hair, blowing out a long, measured breath. “Dave, please. Let me help you.”

“I don’t need your goddamn help, Karthik.” _I don’t deserve it, I don’t deserve your care._ “Leave me alone. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine!”

Dave plastered a grin onto his face, and the reaction from Karthik should have tipped him off to just how manic and deranged he looked, but he didn’t even notice. “See?” he demanded, pointing at the grin. “Fine.”

Karthik, eyes wide, shook his head. “I can’t sit here and watch you destroy yourself anymore,” he said quietly.

“First of all, that is not what’s happening. Second, fine. Then fucking leave.”

Karthik did.

 

Dave threw himself into his work, smoothing things over with Stiller and letting the SBaHJ movie debacle get truly underway. He let his publicist schedule an interview about the picture of him and Karthik and managed to convincingly laugh the whole thing off and quell rumors. He scheduled a Big Fucking Ball for the premier of the next movie several months out, securing the venue and working on the horrible, ironic entertainment. He made himself watch the news and see all the new ways Betty was destroying the planet (the Army Corps of Engineers was alarmed at the impending threat of New Orleans flooding as sea levels continued to rise alarmingly fast).

He didn’t sleep for eighteen days.

Fifteen days into this eighteen day insomnia bout, Rose called for the third time since Terry had died. Dave actually answered this time because he knew if he didn’t, she would send someone to his door, or show up herself.

“Hey sis,” he said, trying to sound normal despite the fact that knowing she was on the other end of the line made his stomach churn. He didn’t deserve her, she didn’t even know that it was his fault, _his goddamn fault_ that Terry had died, she would hate him, she would be so mad that he hadn’t asked her for help—

“Oh thank god, Dave,” she sighed. “Are you okay? Karthik said you weren’t doing well but he didn’t tell me what was going on.”

“He moved out,” Dave said.

“I know. He has been traveling for me again.”

Silence.

“Dave,” Rose began tentatively. “Are you abusing your sleeping meds again?”

“No,” he said, honestly enough. He hadn’t touched the damn things in almost three weeks. “Sober as pie.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Rose pointed out.

Silence again.

“How are you doing? Why didn’t you answer me the last two times we called?”

“Terry’s dead,” Dave said by way of answer.

A pause. “I know. We always knew her position was the riskiest. Her tactics involved challenging the Baroness outright, unlike the rest of us.”

“It’s not enough,” he replied, and if it was a little non sequitur, Rose didn’t seem to care.

“It never will be,” she said. “We aren’t going to win this fight, you know that. The best we can do is put up a good fight.”

“Why should we?”

“For Dirk and Roxy,” Rose whispered.

“For who?”

Silence.

“Rose? Who are Dirk and Roxy?”

“I have to go.”

The line clicked. Dave stared at the burner phone, then went through the motions of snapping it in half and taking out the memory card. He put it in the blender and watched the machine pulverize the phone into bits.

Rose didn’t want to talk to him. Karthik was gone. Terry was dead.

Dave gave up.

He couldn’t take it anymore, he was so tired, so incredibly exhausted.

The elation of those first three pills passing his lips was only surpassed by the bliss he felt as they started to kick in, as the chemicals lulled his body and mind into blackness.

This began the third stage.

He woke up ten hours later and took three more.

He woke up twelve hours later and ate some leftover pizza, and took three more.

He tried to stay awake the next time he woke up but the shame of being too weak to stay off of the pills and take his goddamn punishment for letting Terry die was too much and he took four and passed out.

 

Dave rose to consciousness like an air bubble rises in molasses. Slowly, with difficulty, incompletely.

Everything was blurry and bright when he opened his eyes, so he shut them again.

 

The next time he woke up his head was clearer. The world was still too bright but after blinking a few times his eyes adjusted, and he could see clear outlines of shapes.

There was an uncomfortable pressure on the back of his left hand. He lifted it to see what it was, and it felt like it was made of lead. A needle attached to a medical tube was taped to his hand.

An IV.

He was… in a hospital?

“Don’t try to get up,” someone said from somewhere off to his right.

He looked over slowly, blinking again to get the speaker to come into focus. He wanted it to be Karthik but it had been a woman’s voice.

“Rose?” he whispered.

“No,” the person answered, moving into his vision’s range. Scraggly, badly dyed blond curls were tucked back in a ponytail, a few loose coils framing a plump, kind face. He knew that face. It was….

“Lucy,” he rasped.

“Bingo,” she said, sitting at the edge of the bed. “How do you feel?”

 _I wish I had died._ “Like I was hit by a bus,” he answered. “Was I?”

“Only if by ‘hit by a bus,’ you mean ‘overdosed on sleeping pills.’ You silly tit.”

“How did I get here?” he asked, trying not to think about the fact that this was the second time he had ODed on his sleeping meds.

“Your sister called me. I didn’t even know you had a sister. She was frantic, babbling about you dying and not being able to call an ambulance. She gave me your address and the gate code, and I brought you here.”

He let that sink in. “Where is here?”

“An in-patient rehab clinic,” Lucy said. “Rose said it wasn’t safe to take you to a normal hospital, that the only place I could take you was here.” She frowned. “Why isn’t it safe for you to go to a hospital? Does this have to do with the last time you came in to Butler’s?”

And there it was, the reminder that broke the dam he had been frantically holding up. Terry’s death, Crockercorp’s threats, Karthik’s absence. Holy _shit_ Dave had been an ass to Karthik. He felt so bad, so drained, so empty and useless and deeply, deeply ashamed, and he had no energy left to stop himself from crying like a fucking baby. Right there in front of Lucy. And so help him, if he had had a bottle of pills on hand, he would have swallowed all of them right then and there.

She took his hand (the one not hooked up to the IV) and squeezed it. “It’s going to be okay, Dave,” she said, but he could hear the shocked and worried note in her words.

“It’s not,” he said, taking his hand back to rub at his eyes. “She’s going to win.”

“Who’s going to win? Win what?”

He scrubbed the tears away and shook his head. “Nothing, never mind,” he said, forcing a smile.

Lucy frowned at him. “You just need to focus on getting better.”

Dave felt his heart clench. “Lucy,” he whispered, stretching his hand back to her. She took it and held it close. “Lucy… I have a problem.”

“I’ll say, Dave,” she said, raising an eyebrow.

He actually chuckled a little, which turned to a painful cough. “I don’t mean… I don’t mean the sleeping pills.”

She frowned again, deeply.

“I mean, I think I’m ready to, uh… ready to admit that… _that’s_ a problem, too.”

“What’s a problem?” Lucy asked innocently. Dave squirmed. This was so not what he had intended to happen at this moment. Lucy dug into her purse for a minute, then handed him a coin. He looked at it, surprised. “Five years sober,” she said seriously. “I have a drinking problem. Almost lost my kids when I hit bottom seven years ago, right after the little one was born. I'd sobered up when I was pregnant and then spiraled in the postpartum depression. Took two years for sobriety to stick. Humor me— _what's_ a problem?”

Dave clutched the token. Seven years of struggle and strength. He could take five seconds to say it. “I’m addicted to sleeping pills,” he whispered, eyes tightly shut.

She patted his hand. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

He choked on another laugh. “It only took overdosing twice to admit, so yeah, not that bad.”

“Twice?” she asked, surprised. He opened his eyes and met hers.

“Yeah, first time was last year. Rose saved me then, too.”

Lucy raised her eyebrows. “Your sister has an OD sixth sense?”

He rolled his eyes. “You have no idea.” He shifted. “But listen, that wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. I need to call Rose.”

“Your cell phone—”

“No,” he interjected quickly. “I can’t use my phone. I need—”

He fell silent as a doctor entered the room, followed by none other than Rose Lalonde herself. Rose met his eyes and shoved past the doctor to run to him. Lucy moved back just in time to avoid getting stuck in a Strider-Lalonde hug sandwich.

His sister clutched at him, tears on her cheeks. “You idiot, you total dumbass, how could you do this, you _promised_ , you _promised_ you wouldn’t let this happen, what if you had died, what if—”

“Can’t die when I’ve got you as my guardian angel,” he murmured, stroking her hair weakly. He still held Lucy’s token in his hand, tucked tightly in two fingers as he ran the others over her soft blond locks.

“If you ever make me do this again, I will never forgive you,” she said, pushing up from the bed and wiping at her eyes. She turned to Lucy, then threw her arms around her. “You must be Lucy,” she said, voice choked. “Thank you, thank you….”

Lucy returned the embrace. “I love him, too, Ms. Lalonde. I’m so glad you called me.”

The doctor checked Dave’s vitals and asked him some basic questions to assess his brain function, then nodded his satisfaction. “I’ll let you have some time with your family, Mr. Foster,” he said. Lucy must have checked him in under the name he used at the diner, Mark Foster. Of course, that didn’t mean he hadn’t figured out it was an alias. “Then we’ll discuss what happened and treatment plans.”

Lucy excused herself, promising she’d come to visit soon.

As the door closed behind them, Dave met Rose’s eyes for a second before looking away. “Karthik?” he asked.

“On a flight from Chicago. He was staying with Tavi.”

“Don’t let him come here,” Dave said, picking at the blanket. “Don’t let him see me like this.”

“Dave,” Rose said gently, “if he could handle the way you treated him after Terry died, he can handle this. Let him come.”

“Not yet,” he whispered.

 

Dave agreed to a 28 day in-patient treatment that included weening him off the drugs to avoid the worst of the withdrawal symptoms, counseling, and working with a ‘sleep therapist’ on ‘healthy sleep hygiene.’ The first week sucked. The second week sucked a little more. The third week sucked less.

Dave had just come from his counseling session. At first, weeks ago, he had tried to make the counselor convinced he was crazy by telling her all about the fact that a Seer had told him about the end of the world and how he didn’t see the point in fighting, but she just accepted all of it as true and asked clarifying questions. Bemused, Dave had found himself being way too honest. The counselor didn't call him crazy or commit him to an asylum. So in that third week, two days before his first sober good night’s sleep in a long time, he had found himself explaining how he had let everyone down and that Terry had died because of his incompetence, and now everyone hated him.

His counselor, Shannon, asked if he always felt like things were his fault.

And then somehow he was talking about his adoptive family growing up and everything made _so much sense_ before it didn’t make any sense again, and then maybe when he left, it made a little bit of sense again? Therapy was exhausting.

He had finally started a journal like Shannon had asked him to that same night, and the only thing he could bring himself to write was “maybe it wasn’t my fault that Terry died.”

The day after, he slept for six hours on his own. He felt elated all day, and Lucy found him in the game room getting his clock cleaned in chess by a seventeen year old who was trying to suppress the shakes from her withdrawal symptoms.

Dave already knew he was going to lose so he told his adversary that he forfeited and went to greet Lucy.

After the initial pleasantries were exchanged, Lucy bit her lip. “Dave,” she said quietly, and he really liked it when she used his real name. Or at least the most real name he had. “Don’t be mad, but…. I brought Karthik with me today. He’s waiting in your room.”

Dave wasn’t mad, but he was nervous. He had talked to Shannon a lot about how guilty he felt about how he had treated Karthik after Terry’s death. He remembered what she had told him about how addiction and depression can make people lash out, how he had to apologize, how he had to be kind to himself because Karthik would either forgive him or not and that was out of his hands.

 _Be kind to yourself,_ he repeated to himself as he pulled off his shades, took a deep breath, and entered his room to face Karthik.

Their eyes met and all of Dave’s gathered bravery flew out the window.

“Shit,” he whispered, suddenly feeling completely underprepared for this moment.

Karthik licked his lips nervously. “Didn’t… Didn’t Lucy tell you I was here?”

“Yeah. She did.”

“Oh.”

Dave sat down on his bed. Karthik pulled the desk chair around and sat, too, facing Dave.

“How are you?” Karthik asked.

“Uh. Doing better. I guess. Fully off the sleeping pills, now, so that’s done. I can’t take anti-anxiety meds because they’re kinda the same things, sort of, but they put me on anti-depressants and that’s been okay I guess. And I’m keeping a journal now. For my counselor. Well, I mean, because she told me to….”

“Oh,” Karthik said again. “That’s good.”

Dave thought of and discarded about one hundred ironic things to say. He realized with dismay that there was one topic he had not covered in his Treatise on Irony. What to do when irony was just… the wrong choice.

“Look, maybe I—”

“Karthik, I just want—”

They stopped and stared at each other. “You first,” Dave said. Karthik shook his head and gesture for Dave to go ahead. Dave took a deep breath and tried to find some of that courage he had been gathering earlier. “I’m so sorry,” he said at last, unable to meet Karthik’s eyes, so he stared at his hands instead. “You were right, the whole time. I’m addicted to sleeping meds, and I was all along. I should have… should have listened to you. And… and after Terry died, I….” he trailed off, unable to continue past the painful lump in his throat.

Karthik scooted his chair a little closer and tentatively took Dave’s hands in his own.

Dave pulled in a sharp, ragged breath and let it out with a nervous chuckle. “Oh, shit,” he said taking one hand back from Karthik to wipe at the tears that were back in his eyes. “I’ve cried more in the last three weeks than my whole damn life.”

Karthik snorted a little laugh. “Yeah right, Strider, we all know you’re really just a big crybaby.”

Dave laughed again, one short, breathy _ha_. Putting his hand back into Karthik’s, he looked up at last. “After Terry died,” he tried again, “I said and did… awful things. And I’m so, so sorry. I should have been there for you, because she was your friend, too, but I was… I had my head so far up my ass I didn’t even think about it. If you could… find it in you to forgive me, it’d mean a lot to me. But I know that I fucked up pretty bad, so. I get it if you can’t.”

Karthik tugged on his hands gently, and Dave came forward into his arms willingly. It was an awkward embrace, too much distance between their torsos for it to be much more than leaning together and putting their arms around each other’s shoulders, but Dave shuddered in Karthik’s grasp, anyway. “Of course I forgive you, you dickweed.” Dave huffed a sniffly laugh at the weird insulting name. “But I won’t be sticking around if you’re not serious about sobriety.”

“I’m serious about it,” Dave said immediately. “So serious about it the president called to make sure I wasn’t too serious. He was like, ‘whoa, Dave, you’re never this serious about anything, are you sure your manly Strider bod can handle that kind of seriousness?’”

Karthik groaned. “Do I even want to know why it was the president who called?”

“Nobody knows serious like the goddamn president, Kar. He’s the nation’s leading expert.”

They laughed a little together, and Dave's heart felt lighter. Maybe he could still turn this whole disaster around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Addiction is a topic that matters a lot to me, having watched four friends and family members struggle with abusing alcohol and/or narcotics. Their recoveries have ranged from long term and successful to a series of failed attempts to incarceration due to drug-related crime.
> 
> I hope that Dave's descent into rock bottom here reflects the love I hold in my heart for those struggling with addiction. For Dave, both his insomnia and his drug abuse stem from deeper mental health issues. This matter will be addressed in upcoming chapters.
> 
> Finally, I would like to say that, as with all things in fiction writing, the narrative of the story has shaped how I write Dave's pill problem. I have three things to say on this: 1, please forgive narrative liberties, as I have done my absolute best to minimize them; 2, in upcoming chapters I have adapted the story to be as accurate as possible to addiction recovery and will comment on this as it happens; 3, please rely on nonfiction accounts and the recovery groups who deal with the reality of drug addiction for the most accurate accounts of abuse, sobriety, and recovery.
> 
> As I'm sure you're used to seeing in stories like this, please seek help for yourself or your loved ones if someone is struggling with drug abuse, anxiety, and/or depression. Karkat and Rose do not model ideal support behaviors in this chapter, though I hope we agree that Karkat looking out for himself and getting away from Dave was an admirable choice, given how shitty and obstinate Dave was acting.
> 
> That's it! Thanks for reading and I love any and all comments so please consider leaving one! You, reader, make me happy. Here's a hug because ugh, the world is kinda tough right now but you're doing great. You got this.


	6. Somewhere Between the Furthest Ring and Oblivion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Backtracking for a moment to check in with Rose!

Rose listened to the ring-back tone as she waited for Dave to, hopefully, pick up the phone. He hadn’t answered the last two times she had called, and that alone would have tipped her off that something was wrong. But she had been so wrapped up in her own shit lately that she had barely had time to worry about her brother across the country. She kept up with him in the gossip news, knew that he was still going to work regularly, so it wasn’t like he had reached a critical point. He was doing okay, for not doing well. She hoped.

The line clicked. “Hey sis,” Dave said, sounding tired.

She leaned back in her chair in relief. “Oh thank god, Dave,” she sighed. “Are you okay? Karthik said you weren’t doing well but he didn’t tell me what was going on.”

“He moved out,” Dave said. Rose noticed that this was not a direct answer to her question.

“I know. He has been traveling for me again.” She had gotten Karthik’s phone call telling her he needed out of LA for a while to get some distance from Dave, and she had obliged, using her own considerable funds to help him get to Chicago where he was helping Tavi and Rudy with their clubs. Karthik hadn’t said much except that Dave was swinging back and forth between too mellow and too high-strung and he needed a break.

Dave didn’t say anything else even when Rose let the silence drag on too long.

“Dave,” Rose began tentatively. She knew what the mellow/high-strung combination might mean, but if her suspicions were correct, he wouldn’t be forthcoming or happy about her asking. “Are you abusing your sleeping meds again?”

“No,” he said, but she didn’t really believe him. “Sober as pie.”

Pie? Was pie something people thought of as sober? “That doesn’t make sense,” Rose pointed out.

Silence stretched again.

Might as well plunge on. She had questions. Concerns. “How are you doing? Why didn’t you answer me the last two times we called?”

“Terry’s dead,” Dave said by way of answer.

Her heart clenched. Poor Terry. Nobody had seen the batterwitch’s attack coming, not even Rose. If only she had Seen it, perhaps they could have moved Terry early enough to save her life. “I know. We always knew her position was the riskiest. Her tactics involved challenging the Baroness outright, unlike the rest of us.”

“It’s not enough,” he replied. It was a bit non sequitur, but Rose knew what he meant.

“It never will be,” she said. “We aren’t going to win this fight, you know that. The best we can do is put up a good fight.”

“Why should we?”

She knew the answer immediately, even though she had never had an answer for this before. “For Dirk and Roxy,” Rose whispered. As soon as she said their names, visions flashed in her mind of a little blond girl with a mischievous smile and precocious twinkle in her pink eyes, living in Rose’s house and growing up by herself. These were followed by a boy with strawberry blond hair and silly pointed shades, surrounded by swords and horses and puppets in a small apartment. She knew that apartment.

“For who?” Dave asked, but she barely heard him.

The boy and girl—Roxy and Dirk were older now, maybe sixteen, and they were joined by two others and Rose knew them immediately, Jane and Jake. Jade’s grandson and grandniece. She saw the four of them escape meteors striking their homes, watched as they met each other for the first time, heard their plans to take out the waterbitch—or was it the batterwitch—the _fish alien queen_ who—

“Rose?” Dave asked, concerned by her sudden silence. “Who are Dirk and Roxy?”

“I have to go,” she said, unable to focus.

She hung up the phone, even forgetting to disable it immediately as she and Dave always did. She stood on unsteady legs to go to the bathroom, feeling sick, and then she collapsed to the floor, fast asleep.

 

A… woman? stood before her in what Rose thought was some kind of very long black tunic with slits all the way up the sides and matching pants, a strange, many-armed spiral decal on it. Her face was hidden in a deep cowl, but her clawed hands were not hidden, and her skin seemed to be a very dark green.

“Hello, Rose Lalonde,” she said, and her voice was deep and reverberated in a way that made Rose think her vocal cords were not the same as Rose’s own.

“Do I know you?”

In the depths of the hood, Rose thought she could see a sad, unhappy smile. “No,” she said. “In another life, though, we will meet. In that life, I will love your daughter.”

“I don’t have a daughter,” Rose said, knowing in her heart that she was wrong even as she uttered the words.

The woman waited.

“Roxy,” Rose conceded.

“Yes, Roxy. She is a very good friend to my other self, Rose Lalonde. And a natural leader of her people. She and her friends will succeed where you will not.”

“Succeed at what?”

“Stopping the Condesce.”

“Why? Why can’t we stop her now?”

“That is not your role in this, Rose. You are not the Rose Lalonde who is destined to lead her people through the battle to a new world. Your Dave is not the Dave Strider whose incredible mastery of the Time aspect will allow him to deliver the killing blow to two formidable enemies at exactly the right moment. Your John and your Jade are not the ones whose unheard of abilities will save your team from utter annihilation again and again. You are the Medium’s pale copies of those people, living not as gods but humans. You cannot defeat the Condesce.”

Rose couldn’t say she understood all of this, but instead of asking for clarification, she asked, “Who are you?”

“I am just another dead echo of someone else,” she said sadly. “You may call me Calliope.”

“And where have you brought me, Calliope? How am I talking to you, if you are dead?”

“You’re dreaming, of course,” Calliope said. “I wanted to bring Dave along, but he rarely dreams, and when he does, he cannot be reached.”

_The insomnia and the meds,_ Rose thought. _Well, at least that confirms that Dave is definitely using again._

“We are in the furthest ring. I have brought you here to finally explain some things to you, because it is crucial that you and Dave prepare properly for Dirk and Roxy’s arrivals.”

“What does that mean, the furthest ring?”

“We are at the edge of paradox space, as far from Skaia as it is possible to be.” Calliope gestured widely and suddenly Rose saw cracks and shimmering rainbow lights distantly. “Lord English is already here, of course, even now destroying this space, as he hopes to destroy me.” She scoffed. “He still understands so little.”

“Lord English?” Rose asked, feeling dazed as her vision stretched impossibly far, seeing the curvature of the cracks and multicolor lights flashing among them. “What does he not understand?”

“Time and Space,” Calliope answered firmly. “Rose, listen to me. I have three things you must hear. First, I want to tell you something, as a kindness to you, to ease some of your suffering on your Earth. Second, I have a gift that you must bear from me to some of your friends. And finally, I need you to promise me something.”

Rose drew her vision back to the present—the present? she meant their current location… didn’t she? Time and space…. “Rose!”

She shook her head, clearing such thoughts, and focused on Calliope. Her hood was now down, and Rose saw that her eyes were all white. Her features were startling, skull-like and severe, but Rose did not feel afraid.

“The friends you have gathered, those who would defy the Condesce,” Calliope began. “Name them.”

“Tavita, Rudy, Vera, Neco, Epona, Kohana, Karthik… Terry.” Her voice caught on the last name. “Jade and Dave.”

“Yes. You heard me tell you earlier that you are but a pale copy of another Rose, a Rose who is still only in her teenage years.” Rose nodded, though the age information was new. “These friends of yours, and some others you have yet to meet or never will, they are the same.”

“All of them? Is everyone on Earth like that?”

Calliope shook her head gravely. “No. Some people are the originals, like Jane Crocker and Jake English, and your descendants Roxy and Dirk. The versions of them that existed in the world from which the other Rose comes from—they were pale copies. Does this make sense?”

Rose shrugged. “So in this world, Roxy is the important one. In the other world, she is to me what I am to her here.”

Calliope nodded. “Correct. When the version of you, let’s call her Rose Prime.” She paused and gestured, and again Rose saw visions stretch out before her. Another Earth, her own face and Dave’s but as children, with two other children, dark-skinned and black-haired, fighting, battling for their lives, for the life of the very universe. “When Rose Prime and Dave Prime, together with their friends John Egbert and Jade Harley, scratched their session, your Earth was born. You, Dave, Jade English, and John Crocker were sent here to be the guardians of the four new players.”

“Jane, Jake, Dirk, and Roxy.”

“Yes,” Calliope confirmed. “In your timeline, you are just two and a half years from the day they will enter the Medium. But they are not important to what I am telling you just yet. The rest of your friends. The ones you call Kohana and Tavita, and the others. I brought them to your Earth for you, to give you comfort and solace in your fight against the Condesce.”

“Why? How?”

“Because you have it hard enough,” Calliope shrugged. “I have seen the difference that it makes to have friends in your life who support you and work toward your goals with you. I did not have those things. I have spent my life alone.” When she said the word ‘alone,’ it seemed to echo through Rose’s skull in a way that made her feel a vast, complete emptiness, and a deep, true sorrow. She gasped at the sensation, tears springing to her eyes. “You were always destined to find Dave,” Calliope said, “but the world you inherited was intentionally broken and horrible, and I wanted you to have a chance at happiness.”

“So you made copies of our friends from the Earth that… Rose Prime and the others… ‘scratched’?”

Calliope narrowed her eyes. “Though your grasp on the details of the game is poor, yes. You have essentially understood what I mean.”

“How?” Rose asked again. “How can you just… make copies of people?”

“With the help of a certain Rogue of Heart,” Calliope answered, “and a greater understanding of Space and Time than Lord English will ever achieve.”

Another sweeping gesture and Rose saw an alien girl with gray skin and what seemed to be yellow and orange horns, wearing a pink and maroon outfit with a stylized heart on the front, and a matching cloth mask across her eyes. She reminded Rose strongly of Neco for some reason. She watched as the alien girl snatched souls from the dying bodies of other alien kids, here a boy with short black curls and dark circles under his eyes, there a muscular boy with straight hair and broken sunglasses. She carried the souls lovingly around her, dormant, and then Calliope was in the vision, and time seemed to rewind on the souls until they were formless, unburdened by a lifetime of hardship and experience… _babies_. Calliope sent the soul-cradling girl to Rose’s own earth to distribute them into the world, where they eventually were born in the flesh of human children.

“Do you see?” Calliope asked.

“Yes,” Rose breathed. 

“Not all of the souls we took along were able to be born into the world at the right time,” Calliope said. “But you have already gathered to you a good number of the ones who were. Now, a gift for them from me. Speak their true names to them and let them awaken their dormant abilities. Learn these names.”

Rose learned them.

Karkat Vantas. Nepeta Leijon. Equius Zahhak. Vriska Serket. Terezi Pyrope, whose name she learned so she could properly memorialize her. Tavros Nitram. Rufioh Nitram. Kanaya Maryam. There were others: Sollux Captor, Aradia Megido... Rose's head swam with names.

When she had learned their names to Calliope's satisfaction, Rose frowned. "Were these friends of ours truly born into our world only as consolation to us? Isn't that a bit... cruel? To predestine so many lives on a track of misery and failure, so that Dave and I suffer slightly less?"

"I have not predestined anything, Rose Lalonde," Calliope said calmly. "Your friends have chosen their own paths, and have proven themselves yet again to be strong, dedicated warriors in the fight for what is right." She nodded in a way that told Rose this was all she would say on the subject. “Now you have heard my story, and accepted the burden of bearing these names as gifts to your friends. The last thing I need from you is—”

“A promise,” Rose said.

“That’s right. Rose, you will never get to meet Roxy, nor will Dave meet Dirk. The timeline went wrong, or perhaps it did what it had to do to make sure this new session has a chance to succeed. At any rate, you and Dave must prepare for Roxy and Dirk. You must ensure they survive to enter the Medium.”

“How?”

“Prepare homes for them. Your own house in upstate New York will do for Roxy, but Dave will need to return to Houston and use his old apartment there. Fill them with love and all the tools they will need to survive. The Condesce will not interfere; she wants Roxy and Dirk to survive, so they will. But they’ll need everything you and Dave can give them to thrive.”

Rose opened her mouth to ask questions, but Calliope shook her head. “I have given you everything I can, Rose Lalonde.” Calliope leaned forward. “Wake up!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some explanation for you! And, what's this, the possibility of plot movement? No! ;) See you next week for some big changes! I'm really looking forward to sharing the next part of the story with you!


	7. Somewhere Between Want and Need

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't read chapter 5's end notes on addiction and recovery, it'd be cool if you did really quickly.
> 
> Also the end notes on this chapter.
> 
>  ~~(Also it's my birthday)~~ what who said that

_I will not use enforced periods of insomnia as a coping mechanism._

_I will not use chemically-induced sleep or drowsiness as a coping mechanism._

_I deserve a good night’s sleep, no matter what happened today._

_I deserve to feel rested in the morning, no matter what happened today._

_I am at my best when I am well-rested and sober._

_I treat others around me better when I am well-rested and sober._

On the day that Dave checked out of the in-patient facility, his counselor had warned him one last time that things would be different when he returned home. She cautioned him to take it slow, to keep up with his journal, to join a support group (this came with a pamphlet with locations and phone numbers for a few local groups), and to be prepared for challenges and failures. 

“It’s all part of adjusting to sobriety, Dave,” she had said. Dave had disclosed his true identity to her because being called ‘Mark’ all the time was wearying, and he had wanted _someone_ at the facility to call him by his preferred name. “It’s not going to be perfect. You’re going to need to draw on all these new coping mechanisms we’ve been talking about and learn how to apply them.”

They scheduled a follow-up appointment for two weeks from his discharge day, and then he gathered what possessions he had accumulated and went to meet Karthik out front.

The first thing he did when they got home was go to his room and look for every pill bottle he had stashed away somewhere. Karthik followed him, seated himself on Dave’s bed, and said, “Rose turned the whole house over when she was here. Found six bottles. They’re long gone.”

“Six?” Dave asked, pausing to do a mental count. “She missed one.”

He thought it might have been the one hidden under the false bottom of his locked desk drawer, but no, Rose had managed to find that one. The next most likely was the bottle he had stashed inside a pair of socks at the back of his sock drawer. Sure enough, he found the little container and pulled it out, tossing it to Karthik.

“That should be all,” he said.

Karthik looked at the pills with distaste. “I’ll get rid of these right now,” he said, standing. “Then let’s get some dinner to celebrate four weeks of pill-free Dave.”

They went to an upscale Asian fusion place in one of Dave’s fancy cars. Dave didn’t bother trying to go incognito; he had vanished long enough from the public eye that his publicist had been begging him to make an appearance _somewhere_. When they left the car with the valet, Dave shot a cocky grin and peace-sign at the three paparazzi who were taking rapid photographs, then put a hand on Karthik’s shoulder and steered him into the restaurant.

“That’s so rude,” Karthik muttered. “Can’t they just leave people to eat in peace?”

“Just wait until we leave,” Dave sighed. “There will be a mob of them waiting for us.”

That is, in fact, exactly what happened. The flashes were blinding and Karthik learned firsthand why so many terrible celebrity pictures included hands covering faces. Dave posed for the cameras like he was on a red carpet while they waited for the car to come around. Thankfully, this particular restaurant had enough celebrity clientele that they had very clear boundaries and legal warnings about photographers. Apparently, none of the paparazzi wanted to risk legal action tonight, so Dave and Karthik were able to get into the car without being mobbed.

“Freddie is going to hate you,” Karthik said as Dave put the car in gear and pulled out smoothly into traffic.

“Ah, well. I pay her a lot.” Freddie and Abigail had kept the business running while Dave had been at the rehab facility. He had been in touch minimally, enough to know roughly what was happening, but not enough to cause too much stress or distraction from his recovery program. The first thing he was doing upon returning to work tomorrow was giving Abigail a raise and a promotion. Assistant executive producer was the right title at minimum for the work she’d been doing, and he’d give her a bonus on the spot because, shit, she had really kept things together in his absence.

They drove in silence for a while, then Dave said, “So, about… us.”

Karthik shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat, cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

“Listen, I… I have the urge to just ramble about shit in order to tell you in a really roundabout way how I feel but apparently my counselor wants me to try to not do that so much anymore, so.” He cleared his throat. “Looks like I already failed.” Karthik snickered a little. “Fuck you, man.” But Dave was grinning, too.

“Is that your way of being more direct?”

Dave’s smile soured a bit, which had certainly _not_ been Karthik’s intent with the joke. “Actually, that’s…. Look, I. I really like you?” Dave scratched at the back of his head before returning his hand to the steering wheel to make a right turn. “But I’m also like… barely one month sober. And I don’t want to jump into something right when I’m supposed to be focused on, y’know, getting my shit together for the long haul.”

“Yeah,” Karthik sighed.

“So… maybe… let’s give it a month? See how I do, how I’m handling everything? Will you… wait… for me?” Dave was so fucking nervous. He never just _said_ what he meant. He desperately wished he could wrap everything up into an irony burrito with a nugget of truth—a chicken nugget of truth, yeah—in the center that you had to get past like eight different metaphoric vegetables and cheeses and beans to even start to taste. Or whatever. But he found, despite everything, that he had grown to trust Shannon’s advice and if she said being direct was an approach he should try with the people he cared about, then. Yeah. Straight to the chicken nugget, no burrito necessary.

“A month,” Karthik mused, then he sighed again. “I’ve lived in LA for, what, five months? Since the last meeting at Sierra which was April… and it’s late August now, so, yeah about five months. And for a few of those months, you weren’t even an intolerable bastard.” Dave looked stricken but Karthik laughed. “I didn’t mean it like that, Dave. But it was really fucking hard on me to watch you go through all the ups and downs of taking the meds, then depriving yourself of them, then binging them…. I just. I can’t do that again.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Dave said, stomach churning.

“What do you want from me, exactly? To wait for you? What does that mean, to you?

“I dunno, bro, like… let’s not try anything new for a month. No escalation. No expectations. Do whatever it is you’ve been doing, and in a month we’ll see how we feel. And if we both want… more… at the end of the month, we’ll reassess.”

“Does kissing you count as an escalation? We’ve done that before.”

Dave laughed a little, a throaty, nervous sound. “Let’s table physical affection until we get to the end of our month,” he said. “I don’t want to rush anything.”

 

Except now there was this charged feeling between them, the anticipation that in a few weeks, they might get to do everything to each other they had fantasized about in the past. It was torturous. On top of that, Dave had a lot to handle at work, and Karthik was picking up his slack and some of the hole left by Terry when it came to organizing resistance. The long hours and exhaustion and stress were weighing on them both. Just two weeks into their agreement to wait, Dave collapsed on the couch next to Karthik at the end of another long day at work.

“It’s 9:00 already,” he groaned as Karthik paused the shitty romcom he had fired up on the big screen. “I only have one and a half hours before my bedtime.” One of Dave’s ongoing struggles was keeping a regular sleeping schedule, and since he had to be up at 5:00 am to make it to the office by 6:00, he went to bed much earlier than he ever used to, even before he had developed insomnia.

“How have you been sleeping?” Karthik asked. “I feel like I haven’t checked in with you about it for a while.”

“Okay,” Dave said, nestling himself into a corner of the big plush couch and tucking his feet up sideways next to him. “Some nightmares from time to time, but I’ve actually managed to fall back to sleep after them, once or twice, instead of just lying there wishing I would.”

“That’s good,” Karthik said encouragingly. “And you have your follow-up appointment with Shannon tomorrow?”

“Yep, 2:00.”

Karthik hit play on the movie, then gently coaxed Dave’s feet into his lap and started rubbing the ball of his left foot, soothing circles pushing into tired muscles. Dave froze. “Uh. Bro.”

“What?”

“I thought we weren’t gonna… you know.”

Karthik rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me your feet don’t need a nice, _platonic_ rub.”

Honestly, it felt amazing, so despite the butterflies clawing their way out of Dave’s stomach at the gentle but firm massage, he didn’t contradict Karthik.

That night, it took him a long time to fall asleep.

 

The next meeting at the Sierra Ranger Station was approaching. Dave bought Tavi’s plane ticket to get her to the helicopter in Fresno. The date for the meeting was a week after when Dave and Karthik planned to reassess their… whatever it was.

In the meantime, production was wrapping up on _Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff: the seqwul to the prequl’s preequel._ While Dave focused on that, Karthik had accepted Rose’s request to go to Dallas and get in contact with some of Terry’s people in order to get some information about the judges who had been appointed recently to some of the federal districts. Though Betty was not in the White House ( _yet,_ Dave thought bitterly), she seemed to have her claws in everything else, and the courts system was changing rapidly now that Terry wasn’t holding it together. Karthik had gone, come back, and gone again.

Between Karthik traveling and Dave’s workload, the Strider estate was empty a lot, now. Dave came home, ate dinner, slept (usually he managed, but he still had sleepless nights and spent them journaling his mantras, reminding himself he was worth the trouble, it was worth it not to take a pill, worth it not to accept insomnia as his standard), and then went back to work. With production wrapping, he also had to start kicking off promotion events for SBaHJ: tsttpp. A lot of work went into the post-production of SBaHJ films because the visuals had to be roughed up and colored strangely, and the audio blurred and made strange with effects and abrupt volume changes, etc. But part of the brand was an early and long promotion tour, so Dave had three interviews already arranged with Ellen, the Daily Show, and the View, all to take place within a week after the Sierra Ranger Station meeting.

And on top of all of this, Shannon had not been too enthusiastic about Dave’s one-month-to-Karthik-sexy-times plan. “It’s best to wait a year before starting new relationships after getting sober, Dave,” she had told him seriously. He had heard it before, but shit, didn’t he deserve this nice thing? “It’s not a matter of what you deserve, Dave, it’s a matter of doing what’s best for both you _and_ your potential partner. You need more time to figure yourself out sober. How long has it been since you were sober, before your rehab?” A few years. “Really?” Okay, so he had maybe never had a very healthy relationship with drugs and alcohol at all, and it was just the recent years that he’d really been _abusing_ one particular drug to such an extent. “Give yourself time, Dave. If this man is as great as you think he is, he’ll understand.”

Easier said than done. Every time they bumped into each other in the kitchen, or caught the other one staring, or let a hand linger too long while passing the remote, it felt like Dave was on fire. He wanted to grab Karthik by the hair and pin him to the wall and shove his tongue down his throat. He wanted to hear what that usually-grumpy voice sounded like screaming his goddamn name. He wanted—everything.

It was probably for the best when Karthik called and told Dave he had to stay in Dallas longer than planned, and wouldn’t be coming home until after the meeting.

The day after that phone call, he went to see Lucy at the diner and let her hug him long and hard before she brought his (fully caffeinated) coffee.

 

Tavita was waiting for him, just like before. He waved as he locked the car and jogged over to the helicopter, suit and tie once again flapping in the wind from the propellers. He was anxious to see everyone, especially Rose, who had hinted at having some very important and pressing information to share, but he hadn’t let that excitement make him sloppy. Remembering Crockercorp’s covert pictures of him and Karthik kissing in the mountains, he had gone through extra measures to prevent being followed, including taking a taxi to the mall during peak shopping times, where a private driver had picked him up a few hours later from a restaurant’s delivery door, and then had taken him to a pre-arranged rental car under a brand new alias.

He had even driven the wrong way for a while before dumping that car and buying a junker in cash from a used car lot—not expensive enough that paying cash would raise eyebrows, but good enough that he felt sure he’d get to Fresno in one piece.

Hopefully it was enough to shake any tails he might have had. The safety of everyone at the meeting depended on it.

“How’s, uh, the movie going?” Tavi asked as Dave settled the headset into place and she began the procedure to take off.

“Shitty, so we’re on track!” he answered cheerfully, peering out the window for any sign of being followed. The flight and the easy chatting with Tavi relaxed him a bit, and he stopped worrying quite so much. It’s hard to follow a helicopter without being noticeable.

As usual, he was the last to arrive. He and Tavi made their way into the main room, and exchanged greetings with everyone. Dave accepted Rose’s enthusiastic hug with equal enthusiasm. “Thank you,” he whispered into her hair, kissing the top of her head many times over. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

She squeezed him harder, then leaned back to look him in the eye with playful severity. “I’ve got my… _eye_ on you, mister,” she said. He rolled his eyes. Seer jokes. “But seriously, Dave. You’re not letting it go this time, right? You’re sober for good?”

Dave looked over the top of her head and caught Karthik’s eye, a grin blossoming on his face despite his best efforts to Keep Cool. “Yeah, Rose. For good.”

Vera clapped her hands once, loudly. “Let’s get moving, people! Tavi, sit your useless ass down and stop embarrassing us all. Dave, could you be sappier? Your sister’s fine, let’s move.”

Everyone took their seats, and then even Vera’s overbearing nature quieted, because Terry’s absence was so terribly obvious. In the silence that followed, Rudy disappeared and came back with a flask of whiskey and some tumblers. He poured one and set it in the middle of the table, then the other two and passed them to his left and right, before going to fetch a few more. Once everyone had a cup of the liquor, they all looked to Rose.

She held her glass up, eyes sad as she regarded the cup on the table, poured for Terry. “Over four years ago,” she said quietly, “we lost Jade to this fight. Since then, we have been very lucky to lose no other close friends to the batterwitch, until Terry. Terry Pope…” she paused, her voice falling to a whisper. “Terezi Pyrope.” A collective shudder ran through the group. “You are missed. You will be avenged.”

“To Terry,” Dave said, raising his glass. Everyone echoed him, and glasses went up and whiskey down. Dave poured his into Terry’s cup, not trusting himself with _any_ mood-altering drugs right now.

“What was that name you said, Rose,” Vera asked, sounding almost unfriendly in her intensity.

Rose took a deep breath, and told them all a story of a dream she had had several months ago. An alien woman named Calliope, sad and distant… a tale of other worlds and reincarnation, of friendships that crossed universes, and a muse who didn’t want them to have to fight the Condesce alone. The promise of two descendants, Roxy and Dirk, who would join Jade’s grandson Jake and the Crocker heiress Jane to stop the Condesce and save the universe from extinction.

It was a wild tale, but Dave believed her. Rose saw visions of the future, and had saved his life twice from across the country. Who was he to doubt her?

Not everyone was so sure, though.

“Sounds like one hell of a trip, Lalonde,” Vera said mockingly when Rose had finished the story. “But your LSD hallucinations aren’t really the point of all of us traveling across the country to sit around in this decrepit hut.”

“Vriska Serket,” Rose said, staring Vriska directly in the eye. “Thief of Light.” Vera sat back as though she had been struck. “Tavros Nitram, Page of Breath. Rufioh Nitram, Rogue of Breath. Kanaya Maryam, Sylph of Space. Karkat Vantas, Knight of Blood. Nepeta Leijon, Rogue of Heart, and your friend Equius Zahhak, Heir of Void. Terezi Pyrope, Seer of Mind.” She looked at Dave now. “Dave Strider, Knight of Time.”

Stunned silence met her words. Dave felt the change in the room differently, he thought, than the others. Karthik—she had called him Karkat, and it had sounded _so right_ —was tense and stiff, staring at the undrunk glass of whiskey in the center of the table intently. Tavita looked stricken, almost sick. Neco was rubbing his temples, eyes squeezed shut.

“What did you do?” Vera demanded, the first to recover. She turned furious blue eyes onto Rose, snarling. “What is this!”

Rose spread her arms in a gesture of peace and uncertainty. “Vera—Vriska. I don’t know for sure. Calliope said to call you by these names, your true names, as a gift to you all. To help you unlock abilities of some sort. I don’t know what she meant.”

“I need to get some air,” Vera (Vriska?) said, and stalked out of the room. Karthik stood, too, exiting to the old station’s back room that held a few twin beds, presumably serving as a way station for rangers on missions deep in the forest. Back when the national parks had had rangers. Now, their little group used this room and the other like it across the hall as a place to crash the nights before and after their meetings when necessary.

Dave followed Karthik. The brown-skinned man looked up from where he sat on the edge of one of the beds, then hung his head again and raked his fingers through his hair.

“Hey,” Dave said. “You okay?”

“I don’t know,” Karthik said after a minute. “It’s like… something in my… something in my _blood_ is different, like I can feel it pulsing through me in a new way, like it’s… _warmer_ than it used to be or something.”

“What did she call you? Kar… Karkat Vantas?”

Karthik shuddered. “Yeah. So I was this Karkat guy in my last life, huh?” He snorted. “The name feels right. Like it’s always been my name.”

“Do you want me to call you Karkat?” Dave asked hesitantly.

The groan that escaped Karthik/Karkat was pained. “I don’t know, Dave. I feel like everything is different, but I don’t have the first idea what that means. I still feel like me, I’m still the same person… except….”

“Except you’re not,” Dave said.

“Yeah.”

“Do you remember anything about being Karkat?” he asked.

“No.”

Dave waited a minute, but when Karthik had nothing else to say, he excused himself and went to find Rose. He found her on the porch, leaning against the cabin’s outer wall with the flask of whiskey in her hand. She looked miserable.

“Hey sis,” he said.

“Dave,” she replied, taking a swig. “Have I ruined everything?”

“Probably not _everything_ ,” he said lightly. “Christmas will still come this year.”

She gave a cynical bark of a laugh and took another pull from the flask. “Will we have anyone to give gifts to after this?” she asked.

“From what you said of this Calliope woman,” Dave answered, taking the flask from her hand and capping it, “I don’t think she would have asked you to do this if it meant ruining everything we’ve been building.”

Rose nodded. Then she looked over at Dave, eyes narrowed. “You seem so serious,” she said, surprising Dave with the change of subject. “I usually can’t get you to stay on one topic without you digressing on long and elaborate tangents at least five times before you say anything of use.”

Dave placed a hand to his chest but kept his face blank. “Lalonde, you wound me. I can’t believe you would accuse me of such a thing? I, tangents? I, the master of direct statements and serious dialogue? I, who would never harm flies, and yet would rather harm a fly than take a detour through a mixed metaphor that makes no sense? How could you suggest such a thing, you strumpet.”

“That’s better,” she said with a smirk. “Let’s see if we can rally everyone, shall we?”

“You’re the captain, captain. And I, your lowly admiral.”

“Admirals outrank captains, Dave.”

“Surely not.”

 

The meeting ended early for once. Dave and Karthik left with Tavita by 6:00 and were back in LA well before midnight. The ride—helicopter and car—were quiet, subdued.

Dave knew better than to bring up the subject of their potential relationship, just asked if Karthik needed anything before they said goodnight.

“Dave… I don’t… I know the timing for this sucks,” Karthik said, with a heavy exhale. “We haven’t even had a chance to talk about—” he gestured vaguely, searching for words. He failed to find any, so Dave just waited for a moment while his friend looked at his feet, unhappy. “But I don’t… I don’t want to be alone right now.”

“Oh,” Dave said, not sure what else to say.

“Will you… stay with me for a while? Nothing—nothing weird. Just, can I sleep in your room or something?”

“Yeah, man. Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not all people recovering from addiction choose to abstain from all substances! But I think Dave had some really serious talks with his fave counselor Shannon about his history of alcohol and drug use and came to the conclusion that he really needed to back off all of it. Forgive him the caffeine though....
> 
> Also, although it isn't yet decided between Karkat (!!) and Dave yet, new relationships early in recovery are a strong NO among Twelve Step programs. Will Dave listen? Have they jumped in bed together against the better judgment of Shannon and lots of research/experience around addiction recovery? (I mean, they kinda literally just did get in bed together, but what will come of it? _Shenanigans?!_ )
> 
> Dave's doing his best to approach recovery from a variety of angles, and for him a big part of it is that ongoing counseling with a trusted (and good) therapist. I know not everyone has awesome experiences with therapy, but for Dave--and for my purposes as an author--it's been a pretty straightforward and rewarding change. By tackling his depression and anxiety, he's seeing big changes in his insomnia and need/desire to self-medicate.
> 
> More to come next chapter on all of this! I hope you're enjoying. You feed my soul. Also I posted this 2 hours before my birthday came around so now you HAVE to leave me a comment. JK please don't leave me birthday comments but comments on the content or your expectations or anything at all are super super welcome!


	8. Somewhere Between the Calm and the Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> smut ho, me hearties!

Dave Strider had been sober for one year, one month, and one day. He had slept well, on his own, every night, for six months, with rare exception of sleepless or hard nights. But those nights no longer freaked him out. He knew how to handle them now, knew that tomorrow night, he’d probably sleep just fine. He had hired five different kendo and fencing experts in the area so that he had a daily schedule of sparring and skill-honing, keeping him fit and energized. Daily exercise was part of his good sleep hygiene.

In the year of his sobriety, he had done the usual premier hullabaloo for the latest SBaHJ film, including many promotional appearances on TV and interviews in magazines. He had taken a vacation and gone snowboarding with his sister in Idaho (better slopes, fewer people who might recognize him). He had funded a group led by Vriska that had staged a raid on Crockercorp headquarters in Seattle and stolen important information for the resistance about some kind of rebranding plans. He had met Jane Crocker at a charity event that Crockercorp had invited him to, and had actually really liked the kid. She was sweet and sharp, if a bit brainwashed.

He had a new TV show airing, based off the ani-mini-moive of SBaHJ that had come out almost two years ago. It was an animated thing, of almost no real content, but ratings were good and merchandise was flying off the shelf. (It was the first SBaHJ installment to pass the Bechdel test so of course he went overboard and made it so that there were no men in the world at all, which the characters never talked about. No name changes occurred, however.) He made sure that despite the vacant plots, there was plenty of anti-Crockercorp information spread throughout if one knew where to look.

He had also increased his public presence a great deal. It had been Rose’s idea, because as his anti-Baroness messages got louder, he needed the safety net. If Betty killed him now, she’d be killing America’s favorite celebrity, and she’d generate a lot of ill will. It wasn’t impossible for her to get away with it, but there were safeguards in place that in the event of Dave’s death, messages would be broadcast _very_ publicly about Crockercorp’s role.

And he had traveled extensively to Houston, bought an entire apartment complex out from the landlord, and offered the residents of the top floor a _very_ fair sum for their relocation to a new home that he also paid for in full. It had been an easy choice for the family of four to make. He thought of everything he knew about Dirk based on Rose’s phone calls in which she related visions of the apartment and the boy to Dave, and tried to make the home as true to Dirk as possible.

Now it was the night before Halloween of 2007, and Dave was nervously waiting at the airport in scruffy jeans, an old t-shirt, a ball cap, and no shades. People had been recognizing him no matter what shades he wore lately, so he had decided to try the no-shades approach. He wore brown color contacts, though, to prevent freaking people the fuck out.

Tall as he was, he could see over the crowds around him and craned his neck, scanning the arriving passengers for signs of the person he awaited.

And—yep, there he was, scowling in exasperation at the slow-moving old lady in front of him who seemed to keep moving her rolling bag right in front of him every time he tried to get around her. Dave almost laughed as Karthik caught his eye, then gestured at the back of the lady’s head with a look on his face that clearly said “What the fuck!”

Then Karthik had caught up to him and Dave didn’t know how this would go, they hadn’t seen each other in so long and he was really nervous about it, but—

Oh they were hugging now. That was nice. Even if he was being squeezed a little hard.

And yeah. It felt so good, so right. He had wondered if, after more than a year apart, he would still get those butterflies, that soaring feeling in his chest when Karthik touched him. The answer was yes. Butterflies on fucking motorcycles tearing up the goddamn NASCAR track and sticking their moon landing like fifteen year old girls with broken ankles at the Olympics.

“I’m so glad you’re home,” he murmured, not ready to let go.

“Me too.”

They released each other slowly, smiling a little shyly, and Dave scratched at his neck. “Let’s get your luggage?”

Karthik nodded, and they turned together to head to the baggage claim carousels. “It should be at number seven,” he said. Dave nodded, scanning the signs for directions to the right carousel (1-10 to the right, 11-20 to the left).

His heart flipped when he felt a hand nestle itself into his own. Their fingers linked together. He turned to look at Karthik in surprise, and the brown-skinned man raised his eyebrow with a timid expression, like _is this okay?_ Dave squeezed his hand. _Yeah, it’s okay._

After Rose’s big reveal at that fateful Sierra meeting, Karthik had needed some space from Los Angeles and the resistance. Several of the others had similarly asked for radio silence, like Neco and Kohana. Who now went by Kanaya, Dave reminded himself. Vriska had also adopted her old name, but Neco, Epona, Tavita, and Rudy had all indicated they preferred their new names. Everyone had come back to the next meeting, though, which had happened four months ago, and it had been a tearful and touching reunion all around.

Karthik had not been ready to come home, though. He and Dave had agreed when he had first left, just a few weeks after Rose had told them about Calliope, that they would both be better off figuring their own lives out before anything developed between them. For Dave, that had meant a commitment to a year of “uncomplicated” sobriety—no extra distractions, Shannon’s orders (suggestions. Shannon never ordered a damn thing but Dave knew better than to ignore her at this point). And Karthik needed to figure out this Karkat Vantas stuff.

So when two weeks ago Dave had gotten a phone call from him saying he needed a ticket back to LA, if Dave still wanted him to come back, he had jumped on that like a kid in a bouncy house.

Karthik’s luggage appeared, so he dropped Dave’s hand to grab it off the carousel, then they headed to Dave’s car together.

“You didn’t have to come for me in person,” Karthik said, looking at someone who was staring a _little_ too long at Dave suspiciously. 

Dave snatched up Karthik’s hand and said, “And leave my Karkitty to navigate LAX with none but an apathetic, rude driver? Or to hail a taxi on the curb like a common harlot? I think not!”

“Karkitty,” repeated Karthik drily. “Do I want to know?”

“Well, Kar _kat_ … Karkitty.”

Karthik laughed a little. “Yeah, about that. I, uh. I kind of go by Karkat now.”

“Oh! Okay,” Dave said, feeling nervous again. What else had changed? Too much? “Karkat it is. Can I ask why?”

He felt Karth—Karkat’s hand move in his as the other man shrugged. “It just feels… better. I never disliked Karthik before or anything, and I still don’t. But something about ‘Karkat’ just fits.”

“I felt the same way when I started going by Dave,” Dave said.

They fell silent for a while as they arrived to the car and loaded up Karth… Karkat’s bag and backpack, then they chatted amiably about what Karkat had been up to while traveling since the last meeting. The drive was awful, because it was LAX and LAX was always awful, but neither really noticed the traffic.

At the house, Dave grabbed Karkat’s bag.

“I can take that, you know,” Karkat said.

“I know,” Dave answered, and hauled it up the steps to the mudroom anyway.

Once Karkat had followed Dave inside and closed the door, he snatched the luggage out of Dave’s hand and shoved it aside, dropping his backpack next to it. He pushed Dave forward by the chest until Dave’s back hit the wall.

“Let’s not wait anymore,” Karkat said in a low voice.

Dave nodded. “I am so done with waiting. Waiting is for chumps. Waiting is what losers do.”

Karkat rolled his eyes, and then kissed Dave. There was no slow reintroduction to each other, it was just instant intensity. Dave ran his hands up Karkat’s sides, tangled them into his thick black curls. Karkat moved his lips to the side of Dave’s neck, just below his ear, trailing downward, and he might as well have been reading the blond man’s mind because _fuck_ yes.

Dave pushed against Karkat’s waist to move him back, unpinning himself from the wall. Karkat growled a little, making Dave laugh, throaty and needy. “Not trying to stop you, babe,” he said in a breathy voice, “just trying to move us somewhere a little more comfortable.”

Together they stumbled and fumbled their way to Dave’s bedroom, and then when Dave tried to push Karkat back onto the bed, he met resistance. Their eyes met and Karkat grinned in this… hungry way, almost wicked, and it caught Dave off guard enough that Karkat was able to turn him around and shove him back into the bed. His knees hit the edge and he buckled, landing on his back with a little “oof” escaping his mouth. Karkat put his knees on either side of Dave’s legs, still hanging off the side of the bed, and ground his hips forward and oooh yes he was good at that.

But Dave wasn’t about to just lie back and let Karkat have his way. Karkat wanted to be in control, huh? He’d have to earn it. Dave wiggled himself back so that he was fully on the bed, enticing Karkat forward. Just as the other man started to crawl forward over him, Dave grabbed his shirt, brought one knee up, and _flipped_ , a basic wrestling move that Karkat was not prepared for, leaving Dave poised above him with one knee pinned on his chest.

Karkat _laughed._ Dave moved his knee off of the other man’s chest but didn’t let Karkat’s first attempt to shove him off come to fruition—he grabbed his hands and shoved them aside while he leaned down to hungrily capture that laughing mouth.

When Karkat gently tried to get free, Dave grunted and held tighter. “Truce,” Karkat gasped as Dave’s mouth sucked against his neck. “I just want to get your shirt off.”

Dave let him go, and he did as promised, tugging at the bottom of Dave t-shirt and lifting it up and over his head, mussing his hair quite thoroughly. Dave helped him get it the rest of the way off, sitting up straight to tug it down his arm and toss it away, and that was the moment Karkat struck. Before Dave knew it, he was once again on the bottom, and Karkat had one hand on his chin, pushing it back so he couldn’t look to see what was happening, the other fumbling at the button and zipper on his jeans as he trailed wet kisses and licks down Dave’s chest, lower and lower, and yeah, Dave was fine with staying right where he was.

Karkat felt the fight go out of him and laughed again against Dave’s stomach. Dave twined his fingers into the black curls at his belly and groaned. “Shut up,” he said, and Karkat laughed again, taking his hand from his chin and using both to tug off Dave’s pants and boxers. Dave lifted his hips to let him, and soon enough Dave was left with nothing but socks on while Karkat hadn’t lost a single item of clothing.

“Okay, not even a little bit fair,” Dave muttered, about to continue with a protest about Karkat’s state of dress, but then his lover was kissing up his thigh and yeah, never mind, this was fine, totally fair, holy shit.

It had been a long time since Dave had, y’know… _done the nasty,_ and Karkat’s tongue on his cock turned his brain to mush right away. He was reduced to a whimpering mess with the first lick, pleading for more as the warmth of Karkat’s mouth took him in, writhing his pleasure as Karkat pumped him. The fingers of Karkat’s other hand dug into Dave’s side and dull pain shot through him, blending with the overwhelming sensations coming from his dick, and holy shit that was honestly something Dave hadn’t thought about trying before but he sensed a new kink developing as the orgasm wracked his body and left him spasming under Karkat.

After a minute, Karkat laid down next to him, wiping his mouth and grinning. “You’re too easy, Dave,” he teased, trailing his fingers lightly over Dave’s heaving chest. “I thought you’d at least make it to five minutes.”

“F-f-fuck you,” Dave sighed.

“Sure, but you look a little low on stiffness right now. How about… fuck _you?”_

Dave moaned as Karkat’s hand trailed south, resting between his thighs with just one finger barely reaching to his ass. “What do you say, Dave?” Karkat whispered, pressing his lips to Dave shoulder in a long kiss.

“Hell yes,” Dave managed to say, legs spreading already.

“Lube?” Karkat asked.

“Top drawer. Condoms, too.”

Karkat paused after squirting some lube into his hand. He met Dave’s eye and a silly grin blossomed on his face. “Where doing it man. Where making it happen.”

Dave dropped his head back onto the bed and groaned. “You did it. You did what no one else has been able to do. You made me regret writing _Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff_.”

 

Christmas came and went as one of the best Dave had celebrated, surrounded by more friends and loved ones than any previous Christmas, thanks to Karkat and Rose’s scheming. After everyone had gone home, Dave and Karkat were left with two new kittens (thanks to Neco) named Crab and Crow, and a New Year’s party to prepare for.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Dave asked as he performed the unfamiliar chore of removing cat poop from a litter box in the bathroom he now shared not only with Karkat but also the cats. Karkat had followed him to observe because apparently the last time Dave had been left to clean the litter box unsupervised, he had made a big mess on the tile.

“Oh my god, Dave, if you ask me one more time, I swear I will gouge my own eardrums out of my goddamn ears. I would rather walk on broken glass covered in bacon grease while naked than have to answer that question one more time. In fact, let’s just go get some glass and—”

“Holy shit, dude, enough. I get it. You’re ready for your big debut as Dave Strider Official Arm Candy, tee-em.”

The party was being hosted by some big Hollywood production company, and Dave’s publicist informed him that if he missed this party, she would quit. Freddie was the reason Dave even had a brand to sell, these days, so he had promised her that he would be there. And had even warned her that he would have a date.

So it was that on December 31st, Dave got to see Karkat dressed in his brand new, ultra-stylish Armani suit that had been hand tailored just for the dark-skinned man. And holy shit, he should have been making Karkat wear suits all along because _yes._ The suit was dark gray with a kind of subtle sheen to it, and the lapels were black. His shirt was a lighter, heather gray, his tie narrow and sparkly silver in honor of the holiday.

“You look great,” Dave said, running a hand down Karkat’s lapels, then hooking his forefinger into his waistband. “Wanna take it all off?”

“Dave… what are you wearing?”

Master of redirection, that was Karkat.

“This old thing?” Dave said, stepping back to spread his arms wide and grin. Dave was wearing a shimmering red gown with a plunging neckline and a slit up to his thigh. Angelina Jolie would approve of that slit. It was a _fine_ slit. 

“You are not wearing that.”

“I am so wearing this.”

“Why.”

“Karkitty, baby, honey. It’s almost like you haven’t read my seminal piece on irony in CAQ, volume 12, issue 3. Besides, if I don’t do _something_ to give Freddie a hard time, she’ll think she can threaten to quit any time just to get me to do what she wants.”

“You lost a bet with Rose, didn’t you.” Dave shrugged sheepishly. Karkat buried his face in his hands. “Oh my god, Strider, you still make bets against Rose? She’s a fucking _Seer_ Dave, have you ever won a bet against her? Who makes bets against someone who can literally see the future?”

Dave ignored Karkat as he continued to rant, opting instead to sit on the reading chair and try to figure out how to get the strappy high heels on. Kanaya had picked the outfit out, and he had to admit, he actually looked pretty damn good. His chest and legs were hairy, but he didn’t mind, and it definitely added to the ironic statement. And, wow, yeah, high heels were totally his thing now, look at how great his legs looked. Kanaya had been merciful and sent him heels that were low enough and wide enough that he didn’t have _too_ much trouble walking. He made a mental note to tell his new PA, Benjamin, to buy him an assortment of fabulous, professional heels. Like hell this wasn’t going to be part of this daily wardrobe.

As Karkat continued to rant (“…might as well have just agreed to play Russian Roulette with a bunch of blind hookers…”), Dave started to pose like a supermodel, sticking one leg out to the side, hands on hips, mouth pouty. The ranting slowed a bit, so Dave took this as encouragement and strutted like he was on a runway, stomping hard and head held haughtily high. This hurt his feet a bit, but he didn’t let up, stopping at the foot of the bed to do a spin and sassy look over his shoulder.

Karkat stopped ranting because now he was laughing. “Please do that on the red carpet,” he said between gasping breaths, as Dave leaned back on the bed like a perfume model.

Dave jumped to his feet, wobbled a bit, then made his way back to Karkat’s side and slipped a hand under his jacket coat at his waist. “So I can wear it?”

Karkat rolled his eyes, examining the dress up close for the first time, appreciating Dave’s swordfighter muscles on display. “I’m not going to tell you what you can and can’t wear.”

“Aw, what a gentleman. But seriously if you’ll be embarrassed….”

“I’m dating Dave Strider,” he said with a resigned sigh. “If I can’t handle being embarrassed, I might as well leave now.”

“Please don’t,” Dave said.

Karkat kissed him. “Not in this lifetime, babe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOD the wonderful nimagine made [this adorable amazing wonderful art of Dave in his dress](http://nimagine.tumblr.com/post/158579254483/inspired-by-this-fic) and I'm so happy.


	9. Somewhere Between New Year's Eve and New Year's Day

Dave let Karkat climb out of the limo first, then accepted his hand for help getting out. He had never _really_ understood why that old vestige of chivalry had hung on while others had died out until trying to get out of a car in a dress and heels. Yeah, he totally didn’t mind have Karkat’s help balancing while he focused on not showing off his (admittedly very comfortable) panties. (Rose’s terms for repaying his bet loss had been thorough.)

There was actually a second’s pause as Dave took to the red carpet before the flashes started. He smirked. Had he just managed to stun LA’s entire population of reporters and paparazzi? If he had known a gown would have this effect, he’d have tried it much sooner. Still, for all that, he felt exposed and vulnerable, and sank further into his celebrity persona of a stoic and impassive jerk. It felt less weird when he wasn’t being himself, but rather was performing “Dave Strider.”

He looped his arm into Karkat’s and they stopped and posed for the cameras a few times. The BC-BC reporter at the top of the stairs waved them over excitedly. He knew her, a pretty Asian American woman who often covered celebrity events for Crockercorp’s premier channel.

“Dave, wow!” she began, smiling at him as the camera crew got a full body shot. “You look very fetching tonight!”

“Thank you, Cindy,” he said, deadpan. “It’s Prada.”

“I have to say—I think you’ve managed to shock even LA’s most seasoned paparazzi!” Cindy laughed. Dave kept his face blank, as always. “What made you decide on a gown for tonight’s party?”

“New year, new me,” Dave said, and heard Karkat groan at the shitty expression. He almost grinned, but kept it under control.

Karkat’s groan did, however, attract the attention of Cindy. “And who is this?” she asked, eyes glowing. “The same beau you’ve been photographed with a few times now?”

“The very same,” Karkat muttered. “Though I’m beginning to wish past me had just run for the goddamn hills.”

Cindy laughed like this was the funniest joke and Dave had to bite back a grin again, because a grumpy, hating-every-minute-of-this, completely non-ironic date was just so _perfect_ for his brand, Freddie was going to shit herself with happiness.

Cindy thanked them, already looking down the red carpet at the next couple queued up for their BC-BC appearance. Dave pulled Karkat toward the door, where the last few photographers waited for their final red carpet pose. Karkat surprised Dave by pulling him into a dramatic kiss for the cameras.

“I think you smudged my lipstick,” Dave whispered in Karkat’s ear as they parted.

“You’re not wearing lipstick,” Karkat sneered, then suddenly looked horrified. “…are you?”

Dave’s cool expression slipped and he laughed, right there, on the red carpet, in front of all the photographers. Breaking brand because his “beau” was just so damn cute. Cameras flashed. Oh well, Freddie would spin it somehow.

Finally they were inside. Karkat was a bit wide-eyed as he took in the ballroom in its New Year’s glory, gold and silver sparkles everywhere, champagne fountains, silk banners, and tables of sparkling masks, hats, and noise makers for guests to take. Dave immediately snatched up the most ridiculous Venetian mask that looked something like a crow, black feathers everywhere and long beak over his nose, and wedged it into his shades so that he didn’t have to keep his hand up to wear it.

Karkat opened his mouth to expound on the absurdity of this but someone beat him to it.

“Holy shit, Strider, what the hell happened to you.” Owen Wilson shook Dave’s hand, then Karkat’s as Dave introduced them. “Pleasure to meet you. Seriously, bro, you look like the world’s worst drag queen.”

“Thank you,” Dave said sincerely. “Stiller here yet?”

Owen gestured toward the other side of the ballroom. Dave was looking for the other SBaHJ star when his eyes fell on a young black woman, short hair curled around her face and a ruby-crusted tiara nestled above her forehead. _Jane._

Jane, who thought that Dirk Strider was alive right now and probably hidden away back at Dave’s house somewhere. Jane, who got to talk to Dirk everyday if she wanted. Jane, who would one day save Dirk’s life, maybe more than once, according to Rose.

“…Dave?”

Dave’s attention came back to the current conversation slowly, Owen and Karkat waiting for him to say something. “Sorry, what?”

“Just wondering if you’d heard about the announcement out of Crocker Studios—”

“Sorry, O,” Dave interrupted, glancing back toward Jane. “I need to see about a thing.”

And then he took off away from Owen, towing Karkat along behind him by the hand, through crowds of people exclaiming over his state of dress and vying for his attention or an introduction to the handsome man following behind him like a buoy on a fishing line. He ignored them one and all, a nightmare for Freddie tomorrow undoubtedly.

They caught up to Jane. She had a cup of sparkling grape juice in one hand and a little black clutch purse in the other, and stood at the edge of the room, watching the people who had taken to the dance floor.

“Hello, Jane Crocker,” he said, and now that he was standing here next to her, he didn’t have a clear idea of what to do or say.

She turned to face him, piercing blue eyes widening at the sight of his gown, and for a minute he thought she was going to be the one to shame him for wearing women’s clothing, but then she burst out laughing. “Oh, that _is_ wonderful, Mr. Strider,” she giggled. “You must surely have a prankster’s heart.” Suddenly her laugh cut off and she looked quite mortified. “Unless—oh, sir, I am so sorry—do you actually—is this how you prefer to dress? I didn’t mean—”

“I lost a bet to my sister,” Dave blurted out, not sure why he was telling her the truth. Karkat frowned at him and he scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “But, uh, don’t tell anyone that. They all think it’s for the irony.”

“Your secret is safe with me!” she said cheerfully. “Say, I didn’t know you and Dirk had a sister.”

“Oh,” Dave said. “We have different last names and she keeps a pretty low profile—” one truth, one lie, good enough—“so most people don’t know. Really, I don’t talk about my, uh, siblings at all. Keeping them out of the paparazzi circus as much as possible, you know?”

“An admirable choice,” Jane sighed. “I wish I had siblings.”

“You have Dirk and your other friends,” Dave said.

Jane smiled, but then narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Did Dirk tell you about Roxy and Jake?”

“Yeah, of course,” Dave lied.

She nodded, then turned her attention to Karkat. “Oh, my apologies, sir, I certainly was raised better than to not introduce myself!” She clenched her purse under an elbow and held out her hand. “Jane Crocker, heiress to Crockercorp.”

Karkat shook her hand warily. “Karthik Vanda, Dave Strider Official Arm Candy, tee-em.”

Jane laughed again. “I’d say it looks more the other way around tonight, Mr. Vanda!”

“Now that’s a very sexist thing to say,” Dave began, but Karkat hooked an arm around his waist pinched his hip just a little in a way that reminded Dave of other times Karkat had pinched that area, and he went silent with a bit of heat flaming up in his cheeks.

Dave wiggled out of Karkat’s arm and offered a hand to Jane. “Care to dance, Ms. Crocker?” he asked, smirking at Karkat’s choked noise. Serves him right, pinching Dave like that. He could just wait for his dance and deal with all these Hollywood jackals on his own for now!

Jane smiled brightly. “I’d love to!” She giggled as she dropped her glass of juice onto a passing server’s tray. “We’ll make a fine pair in our matching sequined gowns!”

And it was true, her dress, though significantly less scandalous than Dave’s, was also a sparkling red. It was cut modestly with short sleeves and an A-line hem that stopped just below her knees. Very age appropriate. She must have a very responsible guardian.

Jane danced well, clearly having taken lessons, and Dave was one smooth motherfucker so of course he knew every step. As he had written in the Treatise, one golden rule of irony was Never Be Bad At Something Unintentionally (Strider 2006, p. 2). Years ago, as soon as he had learned that his celebrity status would almost certainly involve galas and balls, he had immediately enlisted Rose’s help to learn ballroom dance styles. First he had stunned everyone by being able to dance well, then he had stunned everyone by purposefully fucking every dance up for years, long enough that everyone began to suspect that his initial grace had been a fluke. Now he was back in a “so-Strider-CAN-dance” phase.

He struggled to keep a straight face as they danced, though, because he was struck with a profound sense of loss. This girl would, one day not too far in the future, get to hug his lil’ bro, see him for the man he had grown up to be. She would be one bright light in his life when Dave would be a distant figure, not even a memory, constructed out of shitty news reports and what few other scraps of memorabilia and mementos Dave could put together. Jane would be there for Dirk, and Dave was going to die. 

At the end of the dance, he hugged Jane swiftly. “When the time comes,” he whispered, bending down so she would hear him over the noise, “tell Dirk I’m so proud of him.”

He didn’t give her a chance to react, just spun her to face a young man whom Dave vaguely recognized as one of those up-and-coming Juggalo heartthrob boy band singers, who was waiting to dance with her.

 

Karkat was a little drunk by the time midnight hit. The roar of cheering in the ballroom drowned out any one contribution of “HAPPY NEW YEAR” to the mix, but Karkat screamed it anyway. Dave took a selfie of his own blank stare and Karkat’s raving, drunken hysteria at the change from 2007 to 2008. He sent it to Rose (they used their normal cell phones for such nonsense as selfies and planning their public trips to see each other—everything else was burner phone material) and Lucy.

Before he’d even finished hitting send, Karkat grabbed him for his New Year’s kiss, and Dave happily obliged, and for a moment they stood together, arms circling waists, sweet kisses, and the world was not such a bad place to be after all.

Dave’s cell phone was ringing in his hand. He glanced at it over Karkat’s shoulder, and saw that Rose was calling. He frowned.

“It’s Rose!” he yelled over the noise to Karkat, who shrugged. Dave swiped green and answered. “Hello?” he shouted. He distantly noticed someone pulling Jane Crocker out of the crowd, toward the exit, but when Rose started talking, his focus snapped to his sister’s voice. She sounded panicked, but between the noise of the ballroom and a bad connection, he couldn’t make out most of what she was saying.

“Da—… and I can’t—… oh god Dave what if—… —e needs help—… please don—…”

Karkat could tell from Dave’s alarmed face that something was wrong, and let Dave grab his wrist and haul him by the hand through the ballroom to the far less crowded emergency exit stairwell.

“Rose? Say that again, I couldn’t hear anything.”

His sister sounded like she was sobbing on the other end of the line, near hysterics as she tried to catch her breath to respond. “I-i-it’s Ka-Ka-Kanaya,” she sobbed. “She-she’s gone, the ba-ba-batterwitch _took_ her, and I could-could-couldn’t _do_ anything, Dave, she needs help, what am I going to do?” On the last word, Rose lost what little cool she had regained.

Dave opened his mouth to respond, trying to calm her down, when a blast sounded from inside the ballroom. Dave and Karkat were thrown backwards into the stairs forcefully as the doors that led to the ballroom banged open with terrifying force. The phone was thrown from Dave’s hand as he crumpled, pain surging in his chest and his ears ringing.

Dazed, Dave tried to push himself up and ow—nope, not moving that way, that had to be a broken rib or two. Gently he rolled off of the broken bones onto his back and looked around. Karkat was lying unnaturally to his right, eyes closed and unmoving.

Dave was pretty sure that the whining noise in his ears was his own voice repeating a litany of “oh god no please no” as he forced himself up and fought through the blinding pain to crawl to Karkat’s side.

That’s when he noticed the crowd of people surging from the ballroom toward every exit, including the one he and Karkat were in.

He had to move faster, had to get Karkat out of the way of the stampede, he just didn’t have enough—

_TIME._

Dave moved normally but everything around him slowed to a near halt as he hefted Karkat up into his arms and dragged him back, further into the depths of the stairwell, away from the direct path between the innards of the building and the exit to the street. As soon as they were clear, he blacked out from the pain and exertion.

He wasn’t out long, maybe just a few minutes—just enough time for the rush of people trying to get away from the explosion to pass. Nobody had noticed him and Karkat unconscious in the corner.

Karkat. Fuck, had moving him been okay? Vaguely Dave recalled the limited first aid training he had, in which he had learned not to move injured people if their necks or backs might be broken. Well, he would certainly have died from being trampled had Dave _not_ moved him, so it had to be better than that.

Oh fuck oh shit he was doing the “if he dies this way at least he didn’t die _that_ way” calculus and had for a minute forgotten to be freaking the _fuck_ out about the fact that he _might be dying._

Frantically, Dave leaned over his boyfriend’s body, hands shaking as he checked for a pulse at his neck. (Was he supposed to check his wrist? Did it really matter?) And—yes, there was a pulse. He was alive.

This barely had time to register before movement caught his eye from the doorway to the ballroom. He recognized the two people in the front—what had been their names, Darryl and Brian? No, Darryl _O’Brien_ and… Ryan. Ryan something. The two juggalos in suits who had accompanied Gina and Amanda that day over a year ago when everything had gone to shit.

And their juggalo bullshit was way more pronounced now. Before it had only been their manic grins, the references to the Dark Carnival or whatever that had tipped him off. Now they had some weird clown costuming going on, though their faces were mostly unpainted and easy to see. Three other juggalo assholes with full-on makeup and costuming followed them, but unlike their bureaucrat leaders, these three carried weapons and looked dangerous.

Dave remembered what Rose had said (oh, no, _Rose,_ poor Rose!)—they had come for Kanaya. Now they were coming for Karkat.

He stood, adrenaline and anticipation of a fight washing away the pain from his ribs and side. His sword came to hand from his specibus without a thought. He almost wished some stray paparazzo were here to get _this_ shot, sparkly dress and strappy heels, bloodied and dusty, sword in hand, shades in place.

“Relax, motherfucker, and join us on this fucking journey to the end of days,” Ryan said, and god it was so wrong for this old guy to be talking like a teenage stoner.

“Interesting proposal. I think you’ve convinced me,” Dave said drily.

“Really, Mr. Strider,” Darryl sighed. “It doesn’t have to come to a fight.”

“I think we both know that it does, Darryl. If your side had double the fighters and the element of surprise, it might be a fair fight, too.” On a good day, that was maybe even true.

Time slowed again as the swordjuggalos rushed him. They moved slowly enough that he was able to run forward to meet them one at a time, knocking them back and off balance with the speed and surprise of his attack. But that trick worked once. It wasn’t like he could control this time thing that was happening, not really. It was too new. Besides, for all his tough words, he was working on pure adrenaline and that was burning off fast, leaving him with just a really exhausted, traumatized body— _in heels_ —and even though he was exceptionally good with his sword (haha there’s always time for a dick joke! …), he only lasted another few parries and thrusts (haha…ha.) before his arms gave out and he buckled.

He lost his grip on his sword and it was too far from him to reclaim, not without standing, and wow, standing proved impossible. The first attempt, his knees collapsed on him, and the second was thwarted by a sword pressed against his throat.

And then Darryl moved forward, grabbed Dave’s face, and forced something between his lips before he really knew what was happening. Some pills. The size and shape and flavor painfully familiar—shit how many were there? Four? Dave tried to spit them out but Darryl had a hand tightly across his mouth, then pinched his nose and forced his head back. Dave would rather have passed out than swallow those goddamn sleeping pills, but when Darryl started pouring water through his lips, instinct kicked in and his body, afraid it was drowning, started to react. After some spluttering and suppressed coughing, they covered his mouth again and held his head tilted back, and the pills went down.

He was gagged and bound, and watched as they checked on Karkat, then bound him as well. They picked Karkat up like a sack of potatoes but before Dave could really try to stand or follow them, one of the swordjuggalos aimed a vicious kick at his broken ribs, and the pain made him scream against his gag and crumple. Long before the medication would kick in, his body gave up and he fell unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH SHIT.
> 
> So. I have 3 more full chapters written and then some partial stuff on a fourth, which is an okay buffer. (So much for the 8-10 chapter plan I promised early on /sigh). That said, progress is stuttering because of life demanding my attention elsewhere, though this pet project is a favorite stress relief option, so maybe it won't falter too badly. Also, the new plan is for this to go through 16 chapters, so it's not like there's *that* much left to write. I'm hopeful!
> 
> As always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments! Keep on keepin' on, my friends.


	10. Somewhere Between Then and Now

> ## BOMBING TARGETING CROCKER HEIRESS KILLS SIX, INJURES TWENTY-ONE
> 
> Jan. 1st, Los Angeles—Disaster struck as a bomb rocked an exclusive Hollywood New Year’s celebration early this morning.
> 
> The party, hosted by FM Studios, boasted a glamorous group of attendees, including such A-List celebrities as Ryan Gosling, Ben Stiller, and Jennifer Hudson. Notably, the heiress to Crockercorp International, fourteen-year-old Jane Crocker, was also in attendance.
> 
> Witnesses say the bomb detonated just minutes after the stroke of midnight, while the celebrants were busy cheering the beginning of 2008. The LAFD Fire Marshall has stated that the bomb was planted in the West Hallway, far enough from the center of the ballroom to prevent a higher casualty rate.
> 
> No individual or group has come forward claiming credit for the attack. However, police have disclosed that anti-Crockercorp messages were recovered from discarded cell phones in the area, along with pictures of Ms. Jane Crocker.
> 
> Ms. Crocker, now presumed to be the primary target, was uninjured in the attack. Police are working closely with Crockercorp representatives to ensure that the heiress is safe _continued under BOMBING, p. A2_

“Bullshit,” Karkat muttered as he flipped to the next page. “There’s no way they were after Jane.” He scanned the remainder of the story, but found no news of Dave.

> ## DAVE STRIDER IN ICU AFTER EMERGENCY SURGERY
> 
> Jan. 2nd, Los Angeles—Two days after the New Year’s bombing in Hollywood, celebrity director/producer Dave Strider remains in a medically-induced coma as he recovers from emergency surgery. Strider, 33, attended the glamorous New Year’s party at the Ritz Ballroom with alleged boyfriend Karthik Vanda.
> 
> The two were not in the main ballroom when the explosion occurred, but Strider sustained serious injuries nevertheless. A source inside the hospital stated that Strider’s broken rib punctured his left lung, resulting in the need for immediate surgery.
> 
> Doctors remain uncertain of Strider’s condition, calling the surgery a success but nevertheless keeping the Hollywood star in the Intensive Care Unit.
> 
> An unknown party brought Strider to the emergency room at Memorial Hospital around 1:00 AM on January 1st, the same source confirmed. Mr. Vanda has not been seen since the explosion. Mr. Strider’s staff has refused to comment.

“Yeah, because Betty fucking Crocker kidnapped me,” Karkat growled. He chewed on his lip, his heart heavy with worry about Dave. Stuck as he was in what seemed to be a hotel room/prison cell, he could do little else. Someone had tended his own wounds a few days ago before he had first regained consciousness, but he had sustained minimal injuries.

> ## IS DAVE STRIDER A DRUG ADDICT?
> 
> Jan. 3rd, Los Angeles—In the wake of the Hollywood New Year’s bombing, fans have been disturbed to learn that heartthrob producer/director Dave Strider, known for his cool demeanor and odd fashion sense, might be a drug addict.
> 
> Strider is still in a critical condition at Memorial Hospital, where he is recovering from emergency surgery following the bombing. Doctors are maintaining the medically-induced coma until Strider’s condition improves.
> 
> A source from the hospital leaked information that doctors delayed Strider’s surgery as long as they could due to alarming levels of Central Nervous System (CNS) depressants in his system. CNS depressants are often prescribed to treat anxiety and sleeping disorders. The hospital source disclosed that the level of depressants in Strider’s system was well above what a doctor would prescribe.

“Fuckers,” Karkat scowled. He didn’t remember much after they had shouted “Happy New Year” at midnight, but he knew that up to the last second he _could_ remember, Dave had been sober as a priest. There was no way he took those pills of his own free will.

Karkat tested the door and windows again, then scoured the room for anything that might be useful as a weapon. No go; wherever Crocker had squirreled him away, she had done an unfortunately thorough job making sure he was well and truly stuck. The only clue he had to his whereabouts was the daily paper that was delivered with his breakfast, but it was the National edition of the New York Times and didn’t really narrow anything down.

> ## RUMORS FLY AROUND DAVE STRIDER’S DRUG HISTORY
> 
> Jan 4th, Los Angeles—Just one day after sources revealed Dave Strider to have been under the influence of Central Nervous System (CNS) depressants at the time of the Hollywood New Year’s bombing, an anonymous source from one of Los Angeles’s most expensive and exclusive drug rehabilitation centers has come forward with shocking information about the celebrity director/producer.
> 
> The source, an employee of the rehab center in question, stated that Strider underwent a one month in-patient program at the facility in late 2006. Although Strider’s treatment was deemed successful by his doctors, the source pointed out the unfortunately high likelihood of relapse in cases of addiction to CNS depressants.
> 
> Although these rumors are as of yet not confirmed, Strider was notably absent from the public scene, as well as his downtown Los Angeles office building and the set of the latest SBaHJ film, during the month-long period during which he allegedly underwent rehab.
> 
> Strider remains unconscious at Memorial Hospital after the bombing, where doctors have yet to upgrade his condition from critical. His staff refused to comment.

“What the hell is the point of paying them a million fucking dollars if their staff is a goddamn leaky boat?” Karkat demanded of the newspaper. He frowned at the last sentences of the short story, heart clenching at the thought of Dave still in critical condition. Why wasn’t he recovering properly? What had even happened to him to endanger his life so badly?

> ## DAVE STRIDER: HIDING FAMILY TIES TO CELEBRITY AUTHOR ROSE LALONDE?
> 
> Jan. 5th, Los Angeles—Few celebrities are as reclusive as Hollywood producer/director Dave Strider, but if one could claim to be more secretive, it would be author Rose Lalonde. Lalonde, who rose to fame around the same time as Strider for her fantasy series _Complacency of the Learned,_ was known to have a friendly relationship with Strider. The two often appear together for charity events, and have been sighted vacationing together at winter sports resorts in Colorado and Idaho. Many even speculated the two were involved romantically.
> 
> After the New Year’s bombing, Strider was brought to the hospital by an unknown party, with major injuries. When reports leaked that Strider had drugs and alcohol in his body, the Times reached out to known associates for comment.
> 
> When asked if she knew anything about Strider’s apparent drug abuse, Lalonde replied, “My brother did not relapse; he was the victim of a vicious assault.”
> 
> Lalonde refused to comment further, clarifying neither her claim to be Strider’s sister nor whom she was accusing of having assaulted him. Her statement nevertheless does indicate confirmation of the allegations previously made about Strider’s history with drug abuse.
> 
> Strider’s condition remains unchanged at Memorial Hospital.

“Oh, Rose,” Karkat groaned. He had started passing the time by making origami figures out of his newspapers. Most of the attempts ended up crumpled and cursed at, but he had a few successful cranes and balloons. He had carefully torn every story about Dave out, though, and stashed them away in his bedside table’s drawer. The table itself was bolted firmly to the ground, as was the other furniture in the room, and the drawers were impossible to remove.

> ## DAVE STRIDER DIES AT 33 FROM SURGERY COMPLICATIONS
> 
> Jan. 7th, Los Angeles—Almost a full week after the bombing at Hollywood’s premier New Year’s Eve party, celebrity producer/director Dave Strider has passed away at Memorial Hospital. Strider, who suffered a punctured lung and broken ribs in the explosion, underwent emergency surgery at Memorial Hospital on January 1st. Around 11:00pm last night, Strider’s condition took a turn for the worse and doctors rushed him into a second emergency procedure.
> 
> Strider died on the operating table from currently unknown circumstances. With his passing, the death toll from the bombing in Hollywood on January 1st rises to seven.
> 
> In the week since his surgery, many rumors and new facts about Mr. Strider came to light. Among the questions about his familial relationship to author Rose Lalonde and new information regarding his stint in a drug rehabilitation center in 2006, fans have additionally noted that Strider’s apparent boyfriend Karthik Vanda had been notably absent from his bedside at Memorial Hospital.
> 
> Now, with Strider’s passing, Mr. Vanda’s absence seems more suspicious than ever. Many have speculated that Mr. Vanda himself passed away in the bombing, though police have stated that all casualties have been accounted for.
> 
> Mr. Vanda, a Hollywood unknown with ties to Strider from before his rise to fame, attended the FM Studios New Year’s party the night of the attack as Mr. Strider’s date. Vanda has not been seen since the night of the attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :O


	11. Somewhere Between Lost and Found

Karkat was still given the newspaper everyday but he couldn’t be bothered to look at them. They piled up in the doorway, where they were delivered through a mail slot. 

He was in shock. Surely the New York Times had reported this wrong. Dave couldn’t just die from surgery complications, that was absurd. The man was practically indestructible, not to mention he had some kind of time-related superpower—like a _literal_ superpower. Dave didn’t notice it when time skipped around him, but Karkat did. Would anyone believe that Superman died from fucking surgery complications? Or Wonder Woman? Hell no. Superheroes died, _if_ they died, in big fucking epic battles with supervillains. It took Bane to break Batman’s back. It had to take more than a broken rib to take Strider out.

He was angry. Angry at Dave, angry at Betty fucking Crocker, angry at the New York Times for writing those stories and slandering Dave. He was furious enough that he bloodied up his hands punching the walls. He threw a shoe into the television that only showed BC-BC news on loop endlessly, because they were running _another_ story speculating about whether or not Dave’s drug use impacted the complications that led to his death.

And then he was unable to get up. Food came and went and he didn’t notice. He laid in bed and ignored it when someone actually came into his room for once instead of just delivering and then removing food. He didn’t even roll over to see who it was, he just ignored them as they checked his vitals and then disappeared again.

He dreamt about Dave.

He woke up to a familiar face, someone he liked, someone who was saying something with a concerned look. Koha—no, _Kanaya._

He sat up. “Kanaya?” he asked, confused and disoriented. She looked strange to him, and it took him a moment to realize that it was because she wasn’t wearing makeup and her hair was not styled—odd for the model, who always used her appearance as an art statement. She was still the most beautiful person he had ever seen.

She took his hand, relieved. But she also looked sad. “Karkat,” she murmured. “I… I’m so sorry.”

He took his hand back to rub both hands up over his eyes and through his hair, feeling like there were insects crawling under the skin of his face. “No,” he whispered, “don’t.”

She pulled his hands away, worried by the frantic scratching. “Karkat,” she said again, her voice breaking. “I loved him, too. We all did.”

He let her wrap her arms around him and slowly he lowered his head down onto her shoulder, and when she let out her first sob, he lost it. How long they sat together and mourned Dave, they didn’t know, but when they finally moved apart to dry their eyes and wipe their noses, food had been delivered. Kanaya fetched the two trays and brought them to the bed.

Karkat accepted the food and water, taking bites woodenly, only to find the big sandwich gone within a few bites. He was _hungry_. Kanaya gave him half of her sandwich, insisting she would never eat all of it anyway, and he barely even argued before eating it, too. He drained the bottle of water, then filled the bottle from his bathroom’s sink and drank it again.

“What are you doing here?” he asked as he sat back on the bed.

“I was taken on New Year’s Eve,” she replied. “I’ve been here since, in a room just like this one, with just the newspapers and the TV that only plays BC-BC.” She glanced at Karkat’s broken TV. “I see you and your BC-BC TV didn’t get along, either.”

“They just kept talking about….”

“About Dave,” Kanaya finished for him quietly, and he nodded. “I know. I haven’t turned mine on in days, either. I think the funeral was today.”

Karkat bit his lip and fought back fresh tears at the thought of the funeral. Was Rose there? He hoped so. Had Betty shown herself? If she had, he hoped Rose had attacked her. How _dare_ she show up at Dave’s funeral when it had been her goddamn fault. But Karkat didn’t actually know if either of them had been there, since he was stuck in this forsaken box.

He wiped at his eyes aggressively, giving a sharp, exhaling grunt. “Where the hell are we, anyway?”

Kanaya shook her head. “I wish I knew. I couldn’t leave my room until they brought me here to you, and they blindfolded me for the walk over. I think they wanted me to make sure you didn’t starve yourself. All they really said was that you weren’t eating.” He shifted uncomfortably, feeling how weak the last few days of refusing food and most water had made him. He was still hungry, but now that he thought about it, the food was probably pumped full of those so-called ‘vitamins’ that were making the entire US population blissfully ignorant of all the shit going down.

Kanaya brushed some hair out of her face and sighed, bringing Karkat’s focus back to her. “But,” she said dreamily, her eyes unfocused, “I feel as though—”

Before she could finish, the door opened and a juggalo walked in. She was petite, her face completely covered in black and white paint, and she wore a black leather suit with a knee-length skirt and no shirt under the jacket. Covering her legs were what seemed to be red and black leggings with some kind of gaudy ICP design that Karkat didn’t bother examining too closely.

Kanaya and Karkat stared. This was their first encounter with one of the captors, besides Kanaya being walked over to Karkat’s room, or Karkat receiving medical attention while he was unconscious.

The juggalo smiled and Karkat was disgusted to see even her teeth were painted black and white. “Hello,” she greeted them warmly, and Karkat narrowed his eyes at the sound of her voice. It was familiar, but only vaguely. “Are you enjoying your stay?”

Any sense of vague familiarity vanished at this, and Karkat almost lunged at her—how dare she suggest this was enjoyable, that everything wasn’t all wrong. As if they were on vacation. Kanaya caught his wrist, her grip like a vice.

“Good, good,” chuckled the woman. “We apologize for keeping you waiting longer than we would have liked. Thank you for being so patient.”

“You’re very welcome,” Kanaya said acerbically, matching feigned politeness with feigned politeness. “You’ve been such gracious hosts, it’s almost like we had no choice.” Karkat twitched his wrist in her hand, and she loosened her grip a degree.

The grin did not fade. “Yes, well, the wait is over. Come along, we’re not all made of time.”

Made of time. Karkat looked more closely at the woman, sure he knew her from somewhere. But her glossy black-brown hair gave him no clues, nor the face hidden under the makeup. Made of… time? Why was he so caught up on that phrasing?

His eyes widened and he looked back at her legs. She was not wearing red and black ICP leggings. She had two prosthetic legs, designed with red and black clockwork gears. His eyes snapped back to her face and met hers, and a surge of energy flooded through him at her smile.

He rapidly did the mental work, trying to imagine this face without makeup, her glossy hair hidden by a scarf, her body covered in a long-sleeve tunic and loose-fitting pants. _Aradia._ He had recruited her in Texas shortly after Terry had died, having met her at Terry’s tombstone when he had gone to pay his respects. Aradia had once been one of Terry’s clients, he had learned, having successfully sued her employer for failing to accommodate her disability.

Karkat had recruited her, and when Rose had asked him if he knew an Aradia Megido a few months later, he had not questioned the Seer of Light on how she knew. Of course, Aradia had a different last name, but alone among the group of the Calliope-born, she had retained her original name. And Rose had called her the Maid of Time. Ha. Clever Aradia.

Vaguely, Karkat remembered sending her to Rudy and Tavita, who were in charge of finding uses for people after they had been recruited. He was surprised that she had been assigned an undercover mission—and a little sad for her, since her immodest juggalo get-up was a far cry from the conservative clothing she had worn in dedication to her Muslim religion. It must have been hard for her, to sacrifice her values for the sake of the resistance.

“Karkat?” Kanaya nudged him to get his attention. He realized he must have been staring at Aradia, and shook himself.

“Come on,” Aradia said, still doing her juggalo act. “We have appointments to keep.”

Karkat got up almost eagerly, causing Kanaya to tug his arm urgently from where she still had his wrist in her grip. She frowned at him, cutting her eyes back to Aradia. Her nonverbals were either asking “what the hell?” or saying, “we can totally take her out.”

Assuming Aradia would have said something if it had been safe to speak freely, Karkat thought fast. How could he tell Kanaya to trust Aradia without blowing her cover? He thought back to their last meeting at the Sierra station, when Rose had given them all a set of code words to memorize. It had been a precaution that at the time had seemed unnecessary, but now Karkat wished he had spent more time learning them. The word for being in danger had been… aspen? And for safety… snowfall.

“Come on Kanaya, let’s at least see where she’s taking us. I’ve been going stir crazy in here, it’s as bad as that time we were caught in that cabin after the heavy snowfall.” Okay, so it wasn’t the smoothest insertion of a code word, but ‘snowfall’ was not exactly an easy word to make fit casually.

Kanaya opened her mouth to protest that they had never been stuck in a cabin together, but then snapped it shut as she recognized the code word for safety. Her eyes cut suspiciously to Aradia, then back to Karkat, and he gave a small nod, then turned his wrist so that his hand caught hers and he pulled her to her feet.

“Let’s go!” Aradia rushed them, and her tone suggested urgency.

In the hallway, they picked up a few guards carrying handguns and knives. Kanaya gave them a haughty look, shook her dark hair back from her face, and then stalked after Aradia as though the guards were there as her personal entourage. Karkat grinned as he caught up to her side, thinking that once they were out of this mess, he and Dave should really spend more time with—

Oh.

Right.

Dave.

It was like a punch to the gut, remembering that there would be no more “he and Dave.” That the only place he’d get to talk to Dave now was at his tombstone, where he would have to apologize for not being there, for having been unconscious or already kidnapped when those assholes had shoved pills down his throat and kicked in his ribcage (Karkat was sure this is what had happened, given the clues in the papers).

His fists clenched. He hoped Aradia was taking them to Betty Crocker herself so he could land one good surprise punch on that evil bitch’s face before the guards shot him dead.

But instead they were taken to a very ordinary-looking conference room. When Karkat bothered to notice, in fact, this building was absurdly ordinary. It seemed almost the same as Dave’s work office—corporate, boring, standard. The same design of fancy offices next to hallways that led to areas with less fancy offices, some glass-paneled conference rooms and the like. The only oddity so far was the fact that it had hotel room prison cells built in. As if they made a habit of kidnapping people.

They were left alone in the conference room, their guards stationed outside. Aradia disappeared.

“What are they doing with us?” Kanaya asked in a hushed tone.

“I’m sure they’re listening, Kanaya,” Karkat pointed out, also quietly. “This place is bound to be bugged.”

“So what?” she sighed. “It isn’t like we’re saying anything that interests them. Speculating on why they’re holding us seems like the natural course of action.”

Karkat, a bit lightheaded from his prolonged period of refusing food and water, sat down heavily in one of the executive office chairs. They were cushy and very comfortable, and he hated them. “I dunno, ransom?”

“Ransom from who? Rose?”

Yeah, Rose, because now Dave was dead and whatever happened to his money was determined by his will. Shit. Of course, Rose had a considerable amount of money to her name from her best-selling books, probably millions, though Karkat supposed that she had probably poured a lot of it into the resistance.

Then Kanaya frowned. “Well, ransom is a bit absurd considering who’s holding us. Why would they need money?”

Karkat dipped his head sideways in a gesture of thoughtful acquiescence to this point. “True,” he said, drawing the word out. “Unless it’s just to drain resources from…?”

“There’s no way Rose would ever pay all of her money to get us back,” Kanaya scoffed.

“Not even in the wake of Dave’s death? To get _you_ back?” Karkat pointed out, shuddering as he forced himself to say the words. _He’s dead, face it. Doesn’t do you any good to deny it, asshole,_ he told himself harshly as tears stung his eyes again.

Kanaya looked away, worried. “I… I hope not. But let’s say it isn’t ransom money. Why us? Why not just kill us and be done with it?”

If they had wanted money, they could have just kidnapped Dave and made him write them a check. If they had wanted to stop the resistance in its tracks, they would have just killed them all, Rose and Kanaya and Karkat along with Dave, and perhaps Vriska, too, if they could manage. If they had wanted information on where the resistance’s members were hiding, Tavi and Rudy would have been their targets, or maybe Neco and Epona if they could manage to infiltrate the voided-out compound.

How did Kanaya and Karkat fit in? They were primarily recruiters, trying to bring more people into the cause. Sure, kidnapping them might slow recruitment down, but it was an easy role to replace. And again, if the goal was to get the two main recruiters off the scene, why not just kill them? It would not have been hard—if it proved anything, Dave’s death proved that they could have easily picked off Karkat and Kanaya. Dave was hard to kill. Karkat barely knew how to fight, and Kanaya… well, Kanaya spent most of her days eating carrots and posing for photographs, so he doubted she was much use in a fight.

He was at a loss. Why _had_ the batterwitch kidnapped them and then held them hostage?

The door to the conference room opened before either of them could speculate further, and Aradia entered just behind a woman Karkat vaguely recognized. She had been one of the Crockercorp representatives who had come to Dave’s house that one time, before Terry’s death. He had been hidden in the house, peeking out the window through the leaves of a potted plant so they wouldn’t see him, so he hadn’t heard anything, but he recalled that this woman had been the one doing all of the talking.

She introduced herself as Amanda Friedman, then invited everyone to sit. Aradia did not sit, choosing to lean against the wall instead, one knee cocked and arms crossed, the very picture of casual confidence. Kanaya settled next to Karkat doubtfully.

“So, Karthik and Kohana. Or is it Karkat and Kanaya these days?” Amanda smiled coldly. “Welcome.”

Kanaya snorted. “We’re being welcomed weeks after being brought here? Your hospitality is inspiring.”

Amanda’s cold smile only grew. “Well, we all know the welcome is insincere, anyway.” She turned her attention to Karkat. “How are you coping, Karkat? It must be hard, missing Dave’s funeral.”

Karkat snarled. It felt like someone had put duct tape over a gaping wound and then ripped it off when he wasn’t looking.

Kanaya clutched his hand and turned a furious gaze to Amanda. “Have you brought us here just to torment us about our friend’s death?” she demanded. “Surely you have something better to do with your precious time. Tell us what you want.”

“What we want, Ms. Maryam, is to watch your little resistance force fizzle into dust,” Amanda said, surprisingly frank.

“So why not just kill us?” Kanaya asked, still gripping Karkat’s hand tightly. He suspected this was as much for her own comfort as for his.

“We have to keep Ms. Lalonde busy, somehow,” Amanda replied, smirking. “With Strider out of the picture and his reputation ruined, we can’t have her picking up his slack just yet.”

“So kill us all. Why play games?” Karkat snapped.

“I don’t think you understand much about Her Imperious Condescension yet, Mr. Vantas,” said Amanda with a cruel little chuckle. “Though perhaps if your pathetic little rebellion had spent any time looking into the worshippers of the Dark Carnival, you would understand better.”

Karkat cut his eyes to Aradia. “What is this fuckass talking about?” he asked her.

Aradia grinned. “I believe she’s referring to the motherfucking joy we get from watching our enemies in pain. Psychological, physical—the pain of others is holy.”

Kanaya’s eyes flashed furiously as she turned her attention back to Amanda. “So you’re keeping us here to make Rose suffer?” she asked, voice perfectly calm in a way that chilled Karkat to his bones.

“As Ms. Lalonde becomes increasingly more unhinged in the wake of her brother’s death, we benefit. As she continues to make unfounded and unprovable accusations about Crockercorp, the resistance loses its appeal. It’s a win–win for us, really.”

A strange feeling came over Karkat at that moment. It came just as he noticed a small spot of red in Amanda’s left eye. It wasn’t bloodshot, exactly, but a little spot of blood was visible to the side of her pupil. And then it was like he could feel all of her blood pulsing in her vascular system. The feeling sent shudders down his spine, and he was about to reach out and _tug_ on his sense of her blood flow, when Aradia stood up straight.

“The time isn’t right,” she said.

Everyone turned to look at her. Karkat was sure she was talking to him, telling him not to… to do whatever it was he had been about to do. But she looked at Amanda, who had arched an eyebrow at her, waiting for an explanation. “The time isn’t right to tell them about the rest, ma’am,” Aradia clarified. “They’re not desperate enough, yet.”

Amanda looked back at Karkat and Kanaya, then nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose you are right, Ms. Megido. Take them to Block C. Room 27, I think.”

“Happy to,” Aradia agreed cheerfully.

A few minutes later, as she closed the door to their new quarters, she caught Karkat’s hand and squeezed. “Tomorrow,” she whispered, eyes deadly serious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Aradia. [_She knows what she's doing_](http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004488).
> 
> Yeah Rosemary happened in the background while we weren't looking. There will probably be a brief exchange about this in a few chapters.
> 
> <3! Writing is going slow so I dunno if we're gonna keep pace with 2 updates per week. But I can't make myself not update while I have chapters ready because I get really eager to hear what you have to say. Lol. Thanks for your comments!


	12. Somewhere Between Horror and Terror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some graphic violence in this chapter, fair warning.

Karkat and Kanaya were on edge all day, waiting for Aradia to come back. They presumed her parting word (“tomorrow”) meant that they would be attempting an escape sometime today, and they couldn’t settle. They took turns showering and changing into clean clothes that had been provided for them. While Kanaya showered, Karkat took a minute to tear up the sheets from one of the beds. He made some packs by tying up the edges of the sides and ripping straps into the tops. Maybe Kanaya could reinforce them. They packed their clothes and all of the food they could spare into them, doing their best to work where cameras were least likely to be capturing their actions.

They watched the news, mostly so that the sounds of the TV might cover their whispered conversations in which they planned how they could be most useful to Aradia in the escape. The news coverage was also helpful insofar as it gave them an idea of the time of day, since they had no clocks, phones, or computers.

Someone they’d never met before came by to ask them questions about the resistance, which they refused to answer.

Someone dropped off dinner, and they wrapped up the bread and apples that came with the soup and put them in their bags, then ate the soup.

At half past ten at night, Kanaya dozed off.

Karkat waited nervously.

Minutes past 11:00, the door banged open. Kanaya started awake as Aradia called from the doorway, “We have to move _now_!”

Karkat tossed one of the packs to Kanaya, who caught it easily, then strapped his own onto his shoulders, and they ran into the hallway where Aradia was at the end of the hallway, gesturing at them frantically. They sprinted to her and she led them into a stairwell, where they raced down the stairs. Aradia couldn’t navigate the stairs as fast as Karkat and Kanaya, her prostheses not affording her the same degree of motor control, but Karkat noticed that she had changed the prosthetic limbs to be more like the ones runners used, shaped almost like upside down question-marks. She kept the pace at one that did not wear everyone out, but still moved them along quickly.

She stopped abruptly at the doorway of the second floor, three floors down from where they had started. She held up her wrist and watched the second-hand on her watch tick, mouthing along a countdown with each tick. “Now!” she whispered, and slammed the door open.

Karkat and Kanaya followed her through the hallway past empty cubicles and a lunch room.

They turned the corner and Aradia shouted in surprise as she ran straight into a security guard.

The guard, surprised by the abrupt appearance of the three, took only a minute to gain his bearings. He grabbed at Aradia and fumbled for his gun. She slammed her elbow into his stomach as he pulled the weapon from its holster, and his trigger finger twitched. The blast from the gun made everyone yell in surprise, and when Karkat looked again, he saw that the gunshot had blown one of Aradia’s prosthetic feet off and she had collapsed, unable to balance.

Karkat was on the guard in an instant. He was not a good fighter, he knew that, but someone had to contain that gun before actual flesh was torn.

He did the first thing that came to mind and raked his fingernails into the guards face with his left hand, his right grappling with the man’s gun hand. He managed to force the gun toward the wall, then felt the man’s blood under his left hand, and just like with Amanda, he felt the man’s entire cardiovascular system as if the blood pumping in it was metal and he a magnet.

He clenched the magnetic pull and yanked on it as hard as he could. Blood gushed from the scratches on the guard’s face as the man screamed in agony, dropping the gun and falling to his knees. He clutched at his bleeding face as Karkat staggered back, eyes wide in shock.

Kanaya grabbed the gun and pistol whipped the guard hard, and he fell to the ground, unconscious and still bleeding. Then she shook Karkat, who was staring at the guard in horror. “Come on, come on,” she begged him, tugging him toward Aradia. Karkat finally tore his eyes away and together they hurried to make sure Aradia was okay.

She was angry and scared, but not in pain. She waved off their concern with a quick, “I’m fine, I’ve had worse,” and that was when Karkat remembered she had been a soldier before losing her legs. This had come up in passing when he had recruited her, and he hadn’t asked for details then—it hadn’t seemed terribly important from his perspective, but he wondered if it was why Tavi and Rudy had assigned her to an undercover mission.

Aradia reached up toward them and they hauled her to her feet. As she put her arms around their shoulders, she pointed down the hall and said, “That way.” Luckily she was very lightweight, and they were able to carry her easily. Still, the added weight slowed them down, especially since neither Karkat nor Kanaya had eaten enough that day, and on top of that neither of them were exactly experienced at carrying a person like this. They made it to another stairwell, down another floor, down a hallway, and then into an empty cubicle, with only minor bumps and stumbles.

“Wait here!” Aradia said as they gave her confused looks. “I know we have to get away from that guard before someone finds him, but the timing—the timing is wrong. We have to wait here for a minute.”

Kanaya and Karkat set her down, then Kanaya handed the gun to Karkat and said, “Keep watch.” He took the gun in surprise, watching as Kanaya focused on Aradia’s destroyed prosthetic leg. Kanaya looked almost like she was in a daze as she tentatively touched the mangled metal. Then she closed her eyes and a second later the metal twisted and _grew_ back into its proper shape and size.

“What the fuck?” Karkat demanded.

Aradia repeated the sentiment, eyes wide.

Kanaya looked pale. “I don’t know!” she said. “It was… wrong, the… space of it was wrong, it needed to be fixed, I… I don’t know!”

Aradia threw her arms around Kanaya and thanked her, even as Kanaya continued to babble about how she didn’t understand, how was that possible.

“Karkat exploded that guy’s face, and I know things about keeping timelines in order,” Aradia said with a shrug. “Rose sees the future. Apparently you can… fix broken things? We’ll think about it later, but it doesn’t strike me as that strange in comparison to everything else.” She struggled to her feet and pulled Kanaya up after her. “Speaking of timelines, let’s move,” she said firmly.

Karkat looked at the gun in his hand helplessly. “I don’t know how to use this,” he said, clearly a bit scared of it.

Kanaya took it back gently. “I do,” she said grimly.

Somehow he wasn’t surprised.

Now that all three of them could walk normally, they made quicker progress. Aradia hurried them _up_ the next set of stairs, surprising them. She quickly explained they had to make a quick stop on their way out of the building.

As it turned out, the quick stop involved breaking into what seemed from the outside to be a very ordinary office. Aradia took the gun from Kanaya, leveled it at the lock, and shot. The gun went back to Kanaya. They entered the now conveniently unlocked office.

Purple and black decorated the entirety of the insides of this office, with Mirthful Messiah paraphernalia on every visible surface. Karkat and Kanaya stepped inside hesitatingly; this was far worse than any novelty haunted house they had visited as children at amusement parks. The walls were decorated with clown masks, painted black with white and purple lines that looked like scars, or maybe claw slashes. There were juggling clubs that definitely looked like they had been upgraded with vicious metal spikes on them, and Karkat was 100% sure that at least two of the clubs had fresh blood on them.

“Where the fuck are we?” he asked, not even a little ashamed of the shake in his voice.

“Amanda’s office,” Aradia answered, hurrying to the computer and pushing its power button to boot it up.

Karkat was shocked. “ _Amanda Friedman?”_ he demanded, looking around again. “No way, that woman is as square as they come.”

Aradia shook her head. “She dresses like a businesswoman because she handles the majority of the batterwitch’s PR, and they don’t want the connection to the juggalo religion too obvious yet,” she said. “But she’s pretty much the head of the religion.”

“No fucking way,” Karkat said, but he didn’t mean it. He believed Aradia, but imagining Amanda fucking Friedman saying anything about motherfucking miracles was a difficult image to reconcile with her uptight, fruit-cup-eating public image.

“What are we doing here?” Kanaya asked, nervously holding the gun at a steady downward angle.

“We need some information,” Aradia answered distractedly, typing rapidly on the computer. She plugged in a memory stick to the computer tower and Karkat had to fight down an hysterical giggle. This was literally a trope in every bad spy movie ever. As the data transfer ticked along slowly, the protagonist would suddenly find herself under a time crunch, maybe the person whose office it was would show up, or a guard would come by, and she would have to pull the memory stick out before the transfer was done, or right as it reached 100%, or maybe just move a file folder into a clever position that hid what she was doing and she’d make some excuse about not knowing where the bathroom was, or—

“Finished,” Aradia said, taking a second to shut the computer down. She pocketed the memory stick, then looked around the office. She grabbed one of the juggling clubs and told Karkat and Kanaya to stand back, then smashed all of the ICP iconography she could find. Glass shattered and chunks of drywall and wood flew as Aradia desecrated the unholy display.

“I _hate_ this shit,” she spat, tossing the club into the pile of splintered debris. She looked back at Karkat and Kanaya, who gave her a dazed thumbs up.

They followed Aradia onward, and this time she assured them they were heading straight to the exit. Now they were on the well-lit first floor, where windows to the outside exposed them and each flash of a car’s headlights going by made them flinch.

“Almost there, almost there,” Aradia said nervously.

They rounded a last corner and found themselves facing three juggalos.

“What the motherfucking fuck, sisterbro,” one of them said to Aradia, shaking his head. She snarled at him, about to say something back, but then Kanaya _shot the gun_. Karkat jumped and stared in horror at the sudden appearance of a hole in the man’s head as he crumpled to the floor.

“Oh my god,” Kanaya whispered, and her hand trembled even as she aimed the gun at the next stunned juggalo. The two remaining recognized that she was shocked and scared and dived for them, holding their spiked clubs and chains threateningly. She shot again, but it went wild, and glass shattered behind the juggalos, who were on them in an instant.

Karkat dodged the chain that whipped at him and threw his shoulder into the stomach of the woman who wielded it. She staggered back and he tried for the same trick he had done earlier with the guard, but he was terrified of it now, haunted by that spurting blood on the guard’s face as he yanked the life-sustaining liquid right out of the man’s body.

The chain connected with the back of his knee and he howled in pain, letting the woman go and staggering back, barely able to keep on his feet. The chain whipped out again at his side and somehow he caught it, yanking hard. The woman staggered forward and he shot his foot out, kicking her hard in the stomach. She doubled over and he punched the side of her face. Holy shit did it always hurt so much to punch someone? Had he broken his fucking knuckles?

But now she was bleeding from her nose and he didn’t think, just latched on to her blood and squeezed. She screamed and bruises bloomed on every visible inch of her as if he had burst the arteries under her skin.

She was unconscious before her scream faded.

Karkat threw up.

Kanaya and Aradia had taken out the third juggalo and grabbed him, hauling him behind them as they ran through the hole Kanaya’s wild gunshot had opened in the windowed walls. The glass had clearly not been reinforced against the possibility of gunfire, and had shattered enough that they could easily pass through.

“Where are they, it’s past time, where are they,” Aradia was saying, tears running down her face as she cradled one of her arms in the other. Karkat wondered if it was broken.

They followed Aradia through the parking lot, then collapsed together behind some bushes, shaking and huddled and sobbing.

“We should keep moving,” Karkat said after a minute.

“Not yet, they should be here,” Aradia answered, using the sleeve of her uninjured arm to wipe at the juggalo makeup on her face.

Karkat remembered something he had packed and started digging around in the makeshift bag he had been carrying on his back. He offered Aradia a handkerchief-sized scrap of sheet and she gratefully accepted it, using it to remove the black-and-white makeup. When she was done, he held up another, larger piece of sheet.

“I, uh, brought this for you. In case you wanted to, you know, wrap your hair or something.”

She stared at him with wide, surprised eyes, then burst into fresh tears as she accepted the cloth. “Thank you,” she whispered, wiping the tears away. She used her fingers to comb her hair back, then quickly and expertly wrapped the cloth around her head as best she could with only one arm. Kanaya offered to help. Karkat smiled a little as they finished—here was the Aradia he recognized, no clown makeup, and wearing hijab.

She grinned back. “Now where are those assholes?” She looked at her watch, her grin fading into a concerned frown. “They’re late.”

“Who?” Kanaya asked.

“The—ah! Get down!” They all ducked at her command, and a second later they heard a car turn into the parking lot, though its lights were off.

Friend or foe? Karkat was on edge, ready to fight or run at the first sign of hostility.

They heard the doors open, close, then—“Rose?!” Kanaya yelled, blowing their cover and rushing toward the unknown car.

“Kanaya, oh thank _god_ ,” came Rose’s voice, and Karkat and Aradia followed Kanaya out from their hiding spot.

Tavita, Rudy, Rose, and another person Karkat didn’t know were standing there, two cars idling behind them. Karkat almost collapsed with relief as they all piled into the cars, him and Aradia in the back car with Rudy and the other person (he thought maybe this was one of the recruits from Chicago, a black man with heavily tattooed arms), while Kanaya and Rose climbed into the other car with Tavita and, Karkat thought maybe he saw someone else who had stayed in the car.

He opened his pack and stuffed some bread into his mouth, offering more to Aradia, who accepted it gratefully. Rudy was strangely silent as he drove them away from the Crockercorp headquarters, fully focused on looking for potential threats, so there was no conversation to be had. Soon enough exhaustion claimed Karkat, and he slept like a dead man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So far the only casualty of this expedition into Crockercorpland is a bunch of ICP iconography! And some juggalos. 
> 
> HIC will not be pleased.
> 
> Looking forward to your comments, as always!


	13. Somewhere Between Danger and Safety

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit short but mostly this chapter is just catching everyone up and getting ducks in a line for the last few. Hope you enjoy!

Dave paced the motel floor restlessly, still angry that Rose and the others had insisted he stay back while they went to get Karkat and Kanaya. Yes, he understood perfectly well _why_ he shouldn’t go with them. When he had been trying to make his point to Rose earlier in the day, she had reached out and poked his ribs with _one fucking finger_ , and he had seen stars from the pain. Yeah. Apparently it took forever for a punctured lung and broken ribs to heal.

So he was grounded, because if a fight broke out, he’d be a liability instead of an asset.

They should be here any second. It was killing him, just waiting inside, but the risk of being identified if he waited by the curb was too high, even in the dead of night, even in fucking _Minneapolis_ , because the risk existed at all. So he paced back and forth, nervously chewing on his fingernail and hating himself for wishing he could take a Xanax because deep breaths were not cutting it.

The sound of car doors opening and closing had him at the door in a flash, peering through the peephole to see if it was Rose and the others. A few seconds later, a sleepy looking Tavita approached, key in hand, to open the door. Dave didn’t give her the chance, just flung the door open and stood back as she entered, followed by Rose and Kanaya and Arielle.

Kanaya stopped in her tracks when she saw Dave, the color draining from her face. “Oh my god,” she squeaked, then reached a trembling hand out to his face.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “What? Do I have ketchup on my face?”

“You’re… alive?” she asked. Everyone threw her a confused glance, and then there was a roar of confused and startled sound behind her and Karkat shoved his way to Dave and threw his arms around him.

The pain made Dave cry out and buckled his knees, and for a minute there was just massive confusion as people shouted and grabbed and pushed and guided, until finally things calmed down and Dave found himself sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching his tender side.

Karkat was standing beside Rudy, who was holding him back and trying to explain about Dave’s ribs. Kanaya interrupted. “Rudy, wait. We thought—we were told you were dead, Dave.”

Dave, one hand wrapped around his ribcage in a futile attempt to relieve the pain, grimaced. “What, a punctured lung, kill me? No way, bro, I am way too cool for that shit.”

Karkat tugged free of Rudy and moved to sit next to Dave, who happily leaned into him as he wrapped his arms carefully around his shoulders. “Oh shit, I missed you,” Dave whispered, taking a deep breath in of Karkat’s scent.

“I _mourned_ you,” Karkat said, voice choked, and Dave felt his heart break a little. He heard footsteps and the door opening, closing, and was relieved when he looked up to see that everyone else had vacated the room. They had rented five rooms at the motel to house everyone, so Dave presumed they were all heading to bed. There would be time for a big reunion tomorrow.

“I’m sorry,” Dave whispered, winding his arms around Karkat’s waist and snuggling into the crook of his neck. “I’m so sorry, love.”

Karkat buried his face into Dave’s hair and cried.

Before Dave could even begin to try to calm Karkat, someone knocked. To Karkat’s surprise, it was a doctor, whom Dave greeted as though he had been expecting her. She took care of Karkat’s injuries, checked on Dave, then said she’d see them in the morning and left again. As Dave explained that the doctor was part of the group that had flown to Minnesota for the rescue, they settled against the headboard, gently intertwined, to fill each other in on the last few weeks.

 

Karkat learned that events had actually transpired not too differently from what he had been told via newspaper while in captivity. Right up to the point where Dave had apparently not actually died.

Dave had been taken to the hospital, unconscious and with shitloads of CNS depressants in his system. He learned later that what did not make it to the reports was that the juggalo asswipes had apparently also forced alcohol into his system after he had passed out. The combination of CNS depressants with alcohol could be deadly, and he was certainly in no condition to be operated upon given those chemicals in his body.

“How the hell did the alcohol part not make it into the reports?”

“I think the person who leaked the story didn’t know about it.”

“Well,” Karkat said, “that tells us one important fact.”

Dave nodded. “Crockercorp didn’t leak the story.”

Karkat scratched at his stubbly chin thoughtfully. “Exactly. If they had leaked it, they definitely would have included that detail. So they just dumped you at a public hospital and waited for humans to be the shitbags we are.”

Dave’s recovery was complicated by the fact that following the surgery, his lung kept collapsing, and they had to keep finding newly creative ways to uncollapse it, because the broken ribs around it were getting increasingly battered by the repeated emergency procedure. After they had stabilized the lung, though, it started filling with liquid, and they had to figure out what was causing that. Eventually, they had opened him up again to see what was happening inside. They were able to pinpoint the problem (“some medical jargon, I dunno, ask Rose, she remembers the words”) and fix it, and a few days later he had recovered enough to have his medically-induced coma lifted.

In the meantime, someone from the rehabilitation clinic he had gone to had in fact leaked information about his stay, and Rose had made that fateful error of calling Dave her brother and denying that he had relapsed, thus confirming that there was something to relapse _to_.

When Dave had finally recovered enough to be moved out of the ICU, his publicist Freddie had been his first visitor. (Here Karkat interrupted with a sudden cry, as if just remembering something very important. Upon interrogation, he learned that their cats Crab and Crow were being cared for by Lucy, and he settled back to hear more about Freddie’s visit, satisfied.) Freddie told him that his reputation was not entirely ruined, but he had taken a big hit and would have to spend the next few months working hard to regain some of the trust he had lost. The publicist was already on it, and the best part of recovering from his injuries was he had every excuse to _not_ participate just yet.

So he had flown with Rose to the Arizona where Epona’s void powers blacked out Neco’s complex from surveillance, and began the scheme to rescue Karkat and Kanaya.

“You _flew_ with that injury?”

“You know that doctor who came in? Paid her to leave her job and come with us. Rose says she’s the granddaughter of one of the Calliope-born, Feferi Peixes. Feferi died years ago, lived under the name Farrah something. Doc’s name is Sara Nguyen.”

“And you just… paid her to come along? That worked?”

“We bought a bunch of medical equipment and offered her triple her annual salary at Memorial to stay with us until we get back to safety. Looks like not even two generations of separation can keep the Calliope-born away from heroism, because she was on board immediately.”

“It’s gross that you have that much money,” Karkat sighed and Dave chuckled. Karkat shifted so his newly bandaged knee was more comfortable as Dave continued his tale.

At Neco’s complex, Dave had been confined to a bed for recovery. Rudy and Tavita had flown in even before Dave and Rose, and had already been in contact with many of the undercover members of the resistance at the various known Crockercorp holding facilities. Aradia was the one who answered back with a positive location on Karkat and Kanaya, and was able to reassure Rose that they were alive.

“Then why didn’t Aradia know _you_ were alive? She thought you were dead, just like I did!”

“I guess it never came up,” Dave mused with a shrug. “She didn’t exactly have time to chat about potentially dead celebrities with everyone. She had to keep her communiques short, to the point that we had to spend some time deciphering what exactly she meant in some of them. She was under a lot of pressure.”

Karkat reluctantly nodded his understanding. After all, even with Rose _right there_ during the rescue, he hadn’t brought up Dave. Rudy had known Dave was alive, and they had ridden in the car together all the way back to this motel, and Dave hadn’t come up. So, he supposed, it wasn’t that surprising that Aradia hadn’t known.

Tavita had flown them out on a private jet with falsified passenger lists. Dave was being wheeled around in a wheelchair for the most part per Dr. Nguyen’s orders, which had actually helped them with their disguises quite a bit.

“We’ll be headed to the airport first thing tomorrow to get us out of this god forsaken state. Who knew winters could be so cold?”

Karkat rolled his eyes. “Literally everyone besides you, I think.”

 

They figured that the Baroness had actually completely falsified newspapers and broadcasts, for the sole purpose of convincing Karkat and Kanaya that Dave had died. Karkat told Dave what Aradia had said about the batterwitch wanting her enemies to be in pain, and they spent a few minutes cursing her for the lengths she was clearly willing to go in order to make them suffer.

“So what are we going to do?” Karkat asked.

Dave leaned over slowly, trying to avoid compressing his aching ribs, and clicked the bedside lamp off. “We’re going to sleep for a whole two hours, and then we’re going to assume that Rose knows better than us.”

They laid side by side for a while, tired but too wound to sleep. “Dave,” Karkat said after a minute. Dave grunted to show he was listening. “Why… why didn’t Rose know? About the bombing?”

He felt Dave shift under his arm, looking at him sadly. “You don’t even know how many times I asked her that. I was so mad,” he said quietly. “I yelled and yelled when I woke up and she just sat there and took it all like she fucking deserved it.” Karkat squeezed his hand. “I even… I even blamed her for not Seeing Terry’s death,” he whispered.

Karkat had also wondered, a long time ago now, how Rose had not Seen Terry’s death coming. But he had never felt brave enough to ask.

“What did she say?” he asked.

“Well, after I apologized for being an ass, she just kind of broke down and said she wished she knew why she hadn’t Seen Terry’s death or the bombing, and that she was sorry. So I don't think she really knows, either.” Dave was quiet for a moment, then added, “I think she can only See things when the visions somehow help us get closer to whatever our destiny is.”

“Destiny?” Karkat repeated, tone skeptical. “Do you believe in destiny?”

Dave snorted, then ran his hand gently up Karkat’s arm. “It’s hard not to when the first time you meet your weird clone sister, she tells you she’s Seen a vision of a fish alien spearing you to death.”

Karkat chuckled, mirthless. “Then, even if we’re going to be speared by a waterbitch, I’m glad it’s our destiny.”

“Why?”

Karkat pressed a kiss into Dave’s temple. “Because it means destiny literally brought us together, you dumbass.”

“You’re such a sap.”

“But you love me?”

A long pause. “Yeah, I do.”

Karkat sighed, smiling sleepily. “Love you, too.”

Sleep didn’t come easy, but it came easier.

 

Dave and Aradia got on like nobody’s business. It was actually a little bit annoying. The plane ride back to Arizona was mostly the two of them making jokes about time and death and it was morbid and stupid and not even a little bit surprising.

Kanaya spent some time talking to Sara about Dave and Aradia’s broken bones, which seemed to really be bothering her for some reason. They conferred with Rose for a while, then Kanaya asked if she could try healing Aradia’s arm. To Karkat’s great relief, this shut Dave and Aradia up for a few minutes as everyone sat around discussing whether or not it was a good idea for Kanaya to try doing to Aradia’s arm what she had done to her prosthetic leg.

In the end, they decided to go for it. Aradia trusted Kanaya—why wouldn’t she, when she and Karkat alone had witnessed that amazing feat of repairing what should never have been reparable?

As everyone watched with bated breath to see if Kanaya’s weird Sylph powers would be enough to mend a broken bone, Karkat was vividly reminded of another power that had come to light last night.

He hadn’t told Dave about using his Knight of Blood powers to attack those two Crockercorp people yesterday. He wasn’t sure he was ready to talk about it. He wondered about the other Karkat, whose soul he apparently shared. He had never had memories of that other life, nor did he especially feel connected to the idea of a past self who had lived that whole life. But now he thought about the Karkat who had died in that other universe, and wondered, had he used that same power to destroy enemies? Had it been as horrible for that other Karkat as it had been for him? If Rose’s report of what Calliope had said was accurate—and he had no reason to suspect it wasn’t—then his powers were probably almost nonexistent in comparison to that other Karkat's.

Suddenly he was glad he was this “pale copy” of that Karkat, because if bursting someone’s arteries inside their body was only a pale reflection of the true strength of the original power, then… yeah.

He watched as everyone exclaimed in awed and excited shock as Aradia gently flexed her newly healed arm, and felt a pang of jealousy. Maybe in that other universe, such a destructive power as his was useful, but here, now? He’d take Sylph of Space any day.

 

The good vibes from the plane ride—listening to Aradia and Dave riff off each other, watching Kanaya heal Aradia—lasted exactly as long as it took for them to get into the compound and see the bad news printed all over Epona’s face as they greeted them.

They had met Epona/Equius at Christmas. Epona had adopted gender neutral pronouns after Neco had brought back their true name from the Sierra meeting. They were tall, muscular, and awkward, and Karkat had a hard time connecting with them, but watching Neco and Epona interact like they were the same soul split into two bodies was reassuring. There really was somebody for everybody.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Neco asked as soon as he caught sight of his shy friend. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Epona said, “I am not hurt. But your escape didn’t go unnoticed. Come inside.”

They followed Epona with growing dread. Karkat was pushing Dave’s wheelchair—it had been decided that his injuries were too delicate to test out Kanaya’s relatively unknown powers on for now, so Sara was insisting Dave rest as much as possible. Besides, Rose had speculated that the older the damage, the harder it would be for Kanaya’s powers to work. She deduced this from the fact that Kanaya had easily been able to repair the mangled metal of Aradia’s prosthetic leg, but had not even felt an inkling of a compulsion to try to repair her biological legs, which had been lost many years ago in Iraq. Trying to heal Dave’s weeks’ old injury seemed far less safe when Kanaya’s power seemed, at least somewhat, related to immediacy.

In a room full of computers, an older man with gray hair and thick glasses looked up in annoyance as they entered and everything flickered. He snarked at Epona about toning down the void stuff before they shorted out the entire network, and Epona looked a bit sweaty as they apologized.

Then Epona said, “Sixteen of our undercover agents embedded in Crockercorp worldwide have failed to check in for their morning reports.”

Stunned silence met this.

“Sixteen?” Aradia repeated quietly, eyes wide and scared. Tavi braced her arm as she swayed unsteadily.

“It looks like a purge,” Epona said quietly. The old man at the computer hub typed some commands, and pulled up online newspaper reports from across the country. They were all from small, local papers that had online editions hosted on websites that looked like they hadn't been updated since 2000. There were seven in all; not enough to account for all sixteen of the missing undercover agents, but enough to paint a picture about what had happened.

“She’s on to us,” Rose whispered, scanning the newspaper clippings. “She knows we have people on the inside now.”

Aradia leaned hard on Tavi. “Because of me,” she said.

Dave shook his head. “No, Aradia. Because we pissed her off.”

Aradia’s fist clenched. “We’ll make her pay,” she promised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dave's not dead! Surprise. I'm sure you're _very_ shocked. But honestly it was less about shocking you and more about shocking poor Karkat. I am WAY too devoted to trying to be canonical to kill off Dave earlier than his prescribed showdown with HIC.
> 
> Also, this is it for biweekly posts. Now it'll be more like... biweekly posts, probably. Ha. See what I did there?** 
> 
> Next chapter is mostly written but otherwise we've officially reached the end of the buffer. So... sorry! It's just a few chapters until the end now, but they'll be more spread out.
> 
> As always I love reading your comments! Thanks for reading!
> 
> **(The joke is about the ambiguity of the term "biweekly," which can mean twice per week [first context] or every other week [second context]. In case like... English isn't your native language or you just didn't care enough to try to figure out what I meant.)


	14. Somewhere Between Inertia and Momentum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The amazing nimagine made [this adorable amazing wonderful art of Dave in his New Year's dress](http://nimagine.tumblr.com/post/158579254483/inspired-by-this-fic) and I cannot love it more! Go check it out! (I LOVE HIS HEELS.) YAAAY

Plans were cooking at the Arizona compound, but Dave had to get back to Los Angeles. As much as it chafed him to admit, he had a lot of damage control to do, and Freddie had been pestering him about making public appearances in the wheelchair for sympathy points before the chair was no long necessary. She knew that the minute Dave’s doctor told him he didn’t have to sit in the damn thing, he would never do so again, and she wanted to squeeze every last pity point out of the contraption. He felt a new appreciation for his usual ambulant state, alongside a pang of guilt for not having appreciated it properly prior to its temporary loss.

The argument with Rose about leaving had gone something like:

“I want to stay.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll do more good from Los Angeles. Go home.”

“No.”

“We’ll tell you when we need you.”

“But, Rose—”

At which point she had thrown down her pen and finally looked up, snarling, accused him of being a pest, and made Karkat wheel him away from her presence.

Of course, they had hugged and assured each other of their mutual affection the next day before Karkat, Dave, and Sara boarded the plane to fly back to California.

When they arrived late in the evening to their estate in Beverly Hills, they found Crockercorp employees waiting for them at the gate. Dave wasn’t sure what to make of this, but apparently the batterwitch had sent a big delegation to deliver an absurd number of get-well-soon gift baskets, flowers, and balloons. Enough to fill five cars. Dave was worried there might be more bombs and made the Crockercorp employees empty every single basket until he was satisfied there were no explosives or other traps, then resentfully opened the gates and let them deliver the goods.

As the Crockercorp gift delegation left, one of them handed Dave a glittery fuchsia envelope. It was gaudy to the extreme, covered in gold and purple sparkles, with Dave’s name written in what seemed to be glitter pen—the kind used in children’s arts and crafts—on the back. Warily, he opened it. Black and fuchsia glitter poured from the envelope and onto his floor as he pulled out a garish card covered in what seemed to be some kind of Betty Crocker logo, but reworked so it looked more like a… trident maybe? And what Dave vaguely recognized as a Pisces symbol.

Karkat peered over his shoulder and together they read the message inside.

“)-(ey buoys, heard you surfived. Too bad for u. ----Enjoy it while you can bitches. Sea you around.”

It was signed with a glittery, purple-lipstick kiss. They didn’t need clarification.

Dave called Benjamin, his personal assistant, and asked him to send people over to collect the gifts and take them to a hospital and distribute them among people who might actually appreciate them. No use in letting all the flowers and snacks from the baskets go to waste. Then he and Karkat took the card to the sink and lit it on fire, but it gave them little satisfaction to watch the short-lived, sickly flames flicker and then die. The acrid smoke burned their nostrils, and they left the ashes untouched before retreating to the bedroom and trying to sleep, to little avail. Karkat said nothing as Dave squeezed him too tightly, barely moving, until finally the blond man's breathing shallowed and his grip slackened.

 

Rose kept them filled in over the next month as Dave and a reluctant Karkat did the “Dave Is Okay World Tour 2008.” Mostly this so-called tour involved a lot of talk show appearances, some carefully planned interviews where Dave talked about his addiction and cleared the air, donated a bunch of money to rehabilitation efforts across the country, and affirmed Rose’s story that he had been assaulted rather than relapsed. Freddie had wanted a relapse/recovery story, but on this he wouldn’t budge. No fucking way. 

He had worked hard to stay sober, had been suffering new bouts of insomnia with the waterbitch’s glittery threats seared into his eyelids—and in all that, he had struggled to open up to Karkat, to reach out to his old counselor Shannon, and to reconnect with support groups he had attended before. Not one goddamn pill had passed his lips of his own volition since the day he had overdosed and Lucy had taken him to the clinic, and no matter how much Freddie thought he sounded like he was lying, he didn’t agree to tell the story she had crafted for him about a moment of weakness, insisting on the truth: someone who had known about his addiction had taken advantage of it to attack him and try to ruin his reputation.

Karkat was a blessing. He angrily ranted at interviewers who dared to suggest Dave was lying. He raved and waved his arms and shouted when people only wanted to know about Dave’s addiction. He defended SBaHJ’s shittiness with every breath, having no trouble drumming up terrible things to say about the franchise while Dave nodded stoically beside him. He also was fine with some PDA, effortless little touches and kisses and photo shoots that really humanized Dave’s image, according to Freddie. He didn’t tell Freddie that Karkat’s affection, almost always unplanned and spontaneous, was also what made Dave actually _feel_ human, most days.

The best part about being benched during his convalescence was the day he rolled into his office to find Stiller, Wilson, and—Donald Glover? waiting for him.

Glover didn’t mince words as he explained how much he admired Dave’s anti-Crockercorp message. He wanted in. Geromy was born. Rumors were leaked. SBaHJ trended on Twitter for days as fuzzy cellphone pictures of Glover in costume found their way to the internet. Freddie was beside herself with joy—between Dave’s injury-and-boyfriend-based image restoration and Glover’s surprise entrance to the SBaHJ franchise, things were turning around.

Glover brought with him a more aggressive political agenda, and Stiller and Wilson didn’t argue. Dave was relieved. He was so fucking over dancing around the fact that the Baroness had tried to kill him, kidnapped his boyfriend and his sister’s girlfriend, and attempted character assassination. The messages became less obscure and more overt. Two producers quit, and Abigail—his former PA, now his assistant executive producer—admitted she had received threats. She refused to step down.

Right around the end of his month-long benching, Freddie discovered that despite (or perhaps, due to) being banned in almost every African country, SBaHJ was a raging success on the continent. Dave looked into this and found out that his movies were being pirated and distributed illegally as a way of recruiting and mobilizing resistance to Crockercorp, which had its tendrils firmly wrapped around every corruptible government official not just in the US, but worldwide. For some reason SBaHJ was working well as a resistance tool in Africa. Dave arranged for merchandise drops, and stuffed into Sweet Bro bobble heads and Hella Jeff plushes was ammo, food, knives, and an underground newspaper run by Neco to keep resistance leaders worldwide informed of what was happening.

 

Meanwhile, Rose, Aradia, Kanaya, and Neco were hard at work planning a five-prong attack on Crockercorp’s American presence. Aradia’s intel had provided the resistance what they needed to strike multiple Crockercorp locations at once. The flash drive had the names and locations of many of Crockercorp’s highest executives, who also tended to be leading the religious factions.

“Why are so many of these people ex-military?” Neco demanded as they looked over dossiers. He absently removed one of his many cats from its perch on top of another folder containing information on the New Jersey Crockercorp executives.

Aradia sighed. “Ex-military and cops,” she said, “are easy recruits for the Dark Carnival worshippers. It’s part of the reason I was so easily accepted and made it through the lower ranks so fast. They purposefully target people with military or paramilitary experience because they want people who are used to obeying orders and who think violence is morally acceptable. And the batterwitch has been undermining veteran support from the government for years, and then sending missionaries to scoop up the fragile soldiers returning from war who often need purpose and support. We’re not getting a lot of that from the government right now, so people keep turning to the Mirthful Messiahs.”

Silence greeted this information. Shit. The Baroness was one evil piece of shit. Neco said as much.

Aradia snatched a cat off the table as it moved to bat her water cup to the floor. She dumped the cat on the floor and hissed at it when it gave her an indignant mewl. The cat scampered to Neco. “I agree,” Aradia said when this display of feline dominance was finished. “HIC sucks.”

“Well,” Rose said, closing the file on Nashville with a thoughtful frown, “we can’t take out the Condesce herself. We know this much thanks to Calliope’s message, and my prognostications. However, I think we can all agree that there is one particular juggalo bitch that we’d like to see eliminated.”

“Amanda Friedman,” Kanaya said immediately.

Rose nodded. “Amanda Friedman. And if we can take out a few of these other Dark Carnival leaders, that’s all the better.”

So the plan unfolded. Five simultaneous strikes on the eve of the rebranding, in Seattle, Minneapolis, New Brunswick, Austin, and Nashville. Amanda Friedman’s schedule was fairly well known, and she mostly split her time between Minneapolis and Seattle, so she would almost assuredly be caught up in the attack.

Rudy and Tavi were in charge of mobilizing forces and getting supplies to each of the five groups that would execute the plan. Vriska, who wasn’t present but enjoyed nothing more than leading groups of warriors into battle, would head the main force in Seattle, where the international headquarters of Crockercorp was. Aradia volunteered to lead the Minneapolis group, given her knowledge of the compound there. Kanaya, to Rose’s dismay, volunteered to head the New Brunswick team, near as it was to her New York base of operations. The Austin and Nashville teams were to be headed by two of Vriska’s most trusted lieutenants.

They knew that on April 13th, 2009, there would be a massive “rebranding” of Crockercorp from the successful mission led by Vriska last year. Aradia explained that this would entail the fish queen making her debut as such, and so they decided their plan should coincide with this reveal, to try to damage her image and take out as many of her high-ranking officials as possible. Maybe it would slow her down some.

This decision was made heavily as they contemplated the rebranding and all it would entail.

Of course, they had known that Betty Crocker was a horned-fish-troll empress, because Rose had seen it some time ago. But it was one thing to know it in that distant, because-Rose-says-so way, and another to be faced with a timeline to her reveal. Worse, Aradia explained what she had cautioned Amanda against telling Karkat and Kanaya as a cover to her warning Karkat not to explode Amanda’s eyeball.

“Once she reveals herself, she has plans to move quickly. You know how the ocean levels have been rising? She wants most of Earth covered in water as soon as possible, so that’s the primary goal. We’re talking massive extinctions in just years, if she has her way. To do that, she’s working on planting Dark Carnival worshipers in as many government positions as possible, in the US, Canada, and the EU to start. She wants the heaviest hitters for economic and diplomatic power.”

“What about all the people who live at sea level?” Kanaya asked.

Aradia shook her head. “It’s part of the plan. She wants global chaos and mass deaths.”

Rose tapped a lavender-painted finger nail on the table thoughtfully. “In four hundred years, when Roxy and Dirk will be alive, they are the only humans left,” she said slowly, getting sour looks from everyone else. “What? We always knew our resistance was not going to save them. Does it change anything?” she challenged.

One by one, her friends dropped their gazes.

“As I was saying,” she said primly, “we know that in four hundred years, the entire human population will be extinct. She has seven billion of us to kill off between now and then.”

Aradia snatched a cat off the table, dumped it on the floor, her face a grim rictus. “Let’s make her fight for every single one of those kills.”

Everyone nodded their agreement. They had just over a year before the rebranding. They dispersed back to their home locations, and quietly, steadily, resources and people moved into place.

 

It was the night before Halloween of 2008, and Dave and Karkat were celebrating their one year fuckiversary, as Dave called it, much to Karkat’s chagrin.

To celebrate, they had decked out the estate in full haunted house style and invited Lucy, her three kids, and ten of their friends over for a Halloween party. Dave and Karkat had picked out Halloween costumes in honor of their cats Crab and Crow, and so it was that Dave looked like a “feathery asshole” and Karkat had earned a new nickname of Krabkat from Dave.

Benjamin was the chaperone on duty, paid triple his hourly rate for his trouble, so that Lucy, Dave, and Karkat could retire to the media room and ignore the shenanigans from the house. They sipped some choice apple juice and comforted the irritated cats, who were hiding from the shrieks and stampedes as the children ran about the house in terrified glee.

A movie was playing— _Young Frankenstein_ —and Karkat was curled up against Dave’s side with Crab sleeping contentedly in his lap. He wished he were quite as comfortable as the little gray cat, though, since his costume’s crab legs were jutting awkwardly into his side; worse, though, were the feathers on his boyfriend’s costume, as they got in his face and obstructed his view of the film—a fact he loudly made sure Dave was aware of.

“Dude, you can sit somewhere else,” Dave pointed out amusedly as Karkat’s rant turned the corner into five minutes and showed no signs of stopping.

Karkat looked at him like he was an idiot, then turned his incredulous stare to Lucy. “Do you hear this? Did you hear what this feathery asshole said? That I can just _sit somewhere else_?”

Lucy shook her head. “I’m sorry you have to put up with him, Karkat,” she intoned.

“What?” Dave exclaimed, grabbing the remote and pausing the movie. “I can’t believe you’re taking his side!” he exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger at her.

Lucy raised an eyebrow. “Dave, the man clearly has a cat on his lap.”

“ _Thank_ you!” Karkat said emphatically. “I can’t just _move_ , Dave. Do you even see how fucking adorable this cat is right now?”

Lucy nodded. “One does not simply abandon cat cuddles, Dave Strider,” she said, shaking her Cleopatra costume’s gold bangles down her arm in order to more effectively reach the popcorn bowl.

“Are you serious right now?” Dave asked, brushing a feather out of his own face and very purposefully not acknowledging how fucking annoying his crow costume was with all the fluff and feathers tickling him constantly. “Are you fucking serious? You’ll rant for half a fucking hour about these feathers because you don’t want to make the cat move?”

Karkat sighed dramatically. “Well, we made it one year.”

Lucy patted his foot. “So sorry to hear about the breakup, dear, but it's for the best now that we know Strider's true nature. You deserve better.”

“Oh my god,” Dave muttered. “Holy fucking hell. I cannot believe you two.”

 

After everyone left, Dave intercepted Karkat on his way to the bathroom. "Babe. Trick or treat."

"Let me guess," Karkat sighed, "the treat is your dick." Dave waggled his eyebrows, so Karkat rolled his eyes and shoved past him. "Yeah, I'll pass."

When the shower turned on a second later, Dave grinned to himself. "Trick, then," he said quietly. Things were going according to plan.

Once he was sure Karkat was in the shower, Dave snuck into the bathroom and stole his towel and pajamas from where he had left them next to his sink, replacing them with the other man’s phone. Then he found Crow and scooped her up into bed with him, glad she was in a cuddly mood after the chaos of the party.

“Strider!” Karkat hollered a minute after the water shut off. “What the fuck did you do with my stuff?”

“They’re just here, babe,” he yelled back, grinning like an idiot.

“What are you, seven?! Can you bring my towel back at least so I don’t drip all over the goddamn tiles and slip and break my neck?” Karkat shouted, exasperated.

“Can’t!” Dave yelled.

“What the fuck do you mean you can’t, you cocksucker?”

Dave snapped a picture of Crow sitting in his lap, the towel visible in the shot, then sent it to Karkat’s phone. “Check Pesterchum!”

“What?!”

“Check Pesterchum!”

He heard grumbling as Karkat apparently snatched up his phone to check the messaging app. Then silence. Then grudging laughter. “You are such an ass!”

“I liked ‘cocksucker’ better!”

Karkat emerged from the bathroom, dripping water all over the carpet as he approached the bed with a play-menacing look to his face.

“Is that a promise?” he asked, crawling up the bed toward Dave and sending Crow scampering away.

Instead of answering, Dave pulled his boyfriend into his lap and pressed a long, slow kiss to his mouth. “Happy one year fuckiversary,” he said.

“Please just say ‘anniversary,’ Dave,” Karkat sighed before returning the kiss.

“Love you,” Dave whispered when they parted, and Karkat’s soft and affectionate smile seemed to light up the whole room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My biggest regret in this whole endeavor is that I totally forgot the rebranding happened on 11/11/11. So, yeah, I know, but I'd have to go back and change sooo many dates and timeline things and let's just pretend that the rebranding was 4/13/09? Yeah? We cool? Thanks.
> 
> Have I told you yet to check out [the incredible art of Dave in his New Year's dress](http://nimagine.tumblr.com/post/158579254483/inspired-by-this-fic)? DID YOU DO IT?
> 
> Okay more will come eventually but be patient, I'm nine days away from a super intense and horribly stressful series of exams that I've been working for like... no joke more than five years to take, so. Writing this will happen when it can? Yeah. <3 Thanks as always for your kudos and comments!


	15. Somewhere Between Systole and Diastole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some graphic violence and intense moments. Check the end notes first if you have violence-related triggers! <3
> 
> Also, if you didn't see last chapter's end notes, I *know* I messed up the date of the rebranding and I'm sorry about it! Probably at some point I'll go back and fix the timeline because I really hate this error, but for now, please roll with it!
> 
> What is this chapter doing here so soon, you ask, especially since you've been insisting it would take a lot longer? I dunno, I started writing and really just wanted to get this done. Next chapter will end this, and I am feeling that drive to finish! So. Here you go? Sorry? :(

On April 12th, 2009, Dave woke up and ate breakfast with Karkat like he always did on Sunday. It was a tense day, because they knew it was the eve of the rebranding and the planned attacks, but they did their best to carry on. At three o’clock in the afternoon, Dave kissed Karkat goodbye and left for the airport to get on a plane to Chicago for a location shoot for the current SBaHJ film.

At the airport, he checked in for his flight to Chicago, and then checked in for his flight to Austin.

The Chicago flight team called his pseudonym four times over the terminal-wide address system before shrugging and closing the doors without him.

He boarded the flight to Austin early since he had bought a first class ticket, so he lounged back in his seat and sent a quick text to Karkat and Rose, telling them his flight to Chicago was taking off and he’d text them when he landed. He turned his regular cell to airplane mode and tucked it away, then pulled out a burner with only one number in it out.

 _everything ready?_ he sent.

Vriska got back immediately. _Yeah! Glad to have you in the game. You sure Lalonde’s still in the dark?_

_no reason to suspect she’s onto us_

_Good. My pal Hud will pick you up. You ready, Strider? We're gonna wreck some shit._

_i am so ready to wreck some shit_

 

Before the sun was even up the next morning, Dave was waiting, sword in hand, outside the Crockercorp building in a sketchy alleyway. He looked over his team. Vriska’s trusted acquaintance, Hud, who was supposed to be in charge of this group had been in on the scheme since the beginning, months ago when Dave had first started to gauge Vriska's willingness to help him with his scheme. Hud stood next to Dave, face covered with a black mask just like everyone else. He had several hunting knives strapped to his waist, but held a hand gun, carefully pointed to the ground. Most of the others also had guns, mostly semi-automatics. A few had more creative weapons—some swords, some knives, some clubs and bats.

The team was sixteen people, including Dave. The plan was to infiltrate, plant bombs, and then wait in offices until the Monday morning targets arrived.

Five in the morning. Time to move. He waved the team forward and they quickly moved themselves to the back entrance to the building. Across the country, four other such teams were doing the same. He didn’t need to remind his team: kill every person they came across. If they were working at a Crockercorp hub building, they were the enemy. Betty was only really employing Dark Carnival people these days, anyway.

At the fire exit door, Dave knocked the predetermined pattern, and the seventeenth member of their team opened it. Once everyone was inside the stairwell, Dave looked them over. “Remember, there is no rendezvous after this. Get yourself out, get yourself to safety, and contact the people you’ve been told to contact. Explosives team and guards?”

Seven of his black-clad crew moved forward. Hands clapped shoulders, accompanied by quiet murmurs of farewell, and then the seven of them were gone.

“Alright, let’s climb,” Dave said, and they took to the stairs. Most of the offices they were headed to were on the upper floors of the forty-story building, but nobody complained. The adrenaline got them up the endless flights of stairs. Somewhere around the twenty-third flight, Dave thought of one of his earliest SBaHJ jokes, and turned to Hud. “Hey dog, I warned you about the stairs.”

The other man gave him a confused look, and Dave sighed. Not a fan, then. Too bad.

Two by two, his team split off until everyone had found their way to an office. Crockercorp was losing its leadership today.

 

In Minneapolis, Aradia didn’t need to check her watch to know it was time to move her team into position. She sent the explosives team in first, then looked over her crew of pseudo-juggalos. Everyone looked the part perfectly. She nodded. “To the offices,” she said. “See you all on the other side.”

Across the country, the other teams were moving into position now, too. Too early for most to be in the buildings. But every Crockercorp employee would be on time today, with the rebranding happening at exactly 8:00 AM Eastern time, which was just two hours away.

Two hours until Amanda Friedman ate a bullet.

 

Karkat didn’t want to wake up but the phone just didn’t stop ringing. Dave usually answered; anyone calling the landline wanted to talk to Mr. Hollywood himself, not the arm candy. But Dave was in Chicago, today, and whoever was calling (his bet was on Freddie) wasn’t taking the hint.

Finally, he rolled over and snatched the phone off the nightstand and clicked the sleek green button. “What!” he snapped. “It’s five thirty in the fucking morning, Freddie, so—”

“Who? Karkat, it’s Kanaya.”

“Kanaya?” he repeated dumbly. “Why are you calling the landline? You know Rose never calls the landline, right?”

“I….”

Now Karkat was really awake. Kanaya sounded… confused. Worried.

“Kanaya? Is everything okay?”

“No! Rose is missing!”

Karkat felt his blood run cold. “Missing?”

“Yes! She’s gone!”

Karkat clicked on the lamp and groped around for his cell. 5:30 in California was 7:30 in Chicago, so Dave should be getting ready for his 8:00 breakfast meeting. “Hang on, Kan,” he said, typing a message to Dave, asking if he knew where Rose was.

“She probably just stepped out, maybe for breakfast? Bringing some bagels home for you?”

“Are you kidding?” Kanaya asked, disdain creeping into her voice. “Neither of us eats bagels.”

Karkat rolled his eyes. “Do you have any reason to suspect something is wrong?”

“Karkat, it’s April 13th!” she said. “It’s 8:30 on the east coast!”

8:30… that meant it was a full half hour since the scheduled rebranding began. It was supposed to be a rolling series of announcements and changes, hitting at 8:00 in each time zone, so here in LA it would be another two and a half hours before Crockercorp unveiled its final and most important touches from its Seattle headquarters, but there should be something online already about the first, east coast reveal.

“What happened?” he asked, throwing the blankets off to head to the office and log onto Dave’s computer. In the doorway, he almost lost his balance trying not to step on Crow, who was suddenly underfoot. He scooped her up and carried her to the office, and she seemed okay with settling in and stealing his body warmth while he booted the computer up. With the home phone receiver pinned between his ear and shoulder and one hand securing the cat, he awkwardly checked his cell with his other hand. No answer from Dave yet.

“Nothing! Aren’t you following the news?” she demanded.

“I was sleeping!” he said, knowing it was a shitty excuse. He typed in Dave’s password and pulled up an internet browser, searching for Crockercorp.

No news.

No news? There should have been… a _lot_ of news. Like, exploding buildings kinds of news.

“I think… I think someone’s here,” Kanaya said quietly into the phone, tone fearful.

“Rose?” Karkat asked distractedly, digging deeper.

He heard a strange scratching and thumping noise, like Kanaya had dropped the phone, then something that sounded like—maybe a drawer opening?

And then a scream—

And then a gunshot—

And then another scream—

“Kanaya?!”

 

Dave checked his watch. 7:43. The executive whose office he was sitting in was due any minute. He propped his feet up on the man’s desk, poking at some of the papers and trinkets. The guy had one of those balance ball pendulums, so Dave pulled the end ball back and let the thing click-clack-click-clack for a while.

7:46. A key in the lock on the door, and someone talking to a secretary.

The door opened.

“Hello, Gary,” Dave said pleasantly.

“What the fuck?!” the man exclaimed.

Just then, some kind of awful alarm started to blare through the building.

“That’s my cue to get moving,” Dave said, and a second later his sword was gut-deep in Gary.

The secretary gaped in the doorway, then grinned and said something about Mirthful Messiahs and motherfuckers, and drew a gun on Dave. Before she could squeeze the trigger, he slowed time—something he was actually able to do when he wanted to now, more or less—and dodged to the side. The bullet embedded itself in the wooden desk behind him instead, and a second later his sword cut the woman’s head from her neck.

Ugh. He had never actually killed a person before and now he had killed two. He didn’t really like it. No time to dwell on it, though; with the alarm triggered—probably from someone of his crew getting discovered, as they had predicted would happen—he needed to move. He had to get to the ground floor, would probably have to fight his way down the stairs, and make sure he was clear before the bombs detonated.

He hoped Hud and the others were safe.

Dave made it five flights of stairs before he glanced down and saw six- seven- eight juggalos enter the stairwell a floor below him. One of them caught sight of him and shouted to her fellow Dark Carnivalists, so he threw himself through the doorway behind him in search of a clearer path.

He was immediately met by a startled shout and then a gunshot. The bullet grazed his leg, just close enough to cut him, and way more than close enough to make his heart hammer in his chest.

Time slowed around him as he assessed his situation. Ahead of him, four startled looking people in dressy clothes—unlike the juggalos in the stairwell, these folk had come here this morning to do desk jobs. Nevertheless, they were armed; Dark Carnivalists never went far without their weapons. But they were not security thugs like the face-painted clowns behind him, and Dave knew they would be the easier fight.

Time resumed its pace and one, two, three of them fell under his sword before they could even track him. The fourth squeezed off another bullet from their gun, but Dave was already out of the way. He rammed his sword into the fourth’s gut, and barely paused to pant in relief before hearing the door open behind him.

Beat. Time slowed. Dave charged to the “EXIT” sign he could see at the other end of the hall.

Beat. He glanced over his shoulder, saw the painted face of one of the clowns staring in frozen disbelief as he ran.

Beat. His heart felt like it would burst.

Beat. This was the longest he had ever forced time to slow, but he was close, so close, just one more—

Beat. He was in the stairwell on the other end of the hall, and time crashed back into him as he released his grip on it.

His knees quaked but he forced himself to jump down the stairs an entire half flight at a time when possible, using the guard rails to slow his descent enough that he didn’t break any bones.

He paused long enough to see that he was now at floor seventeen. Getting close.

At floor fourteen, he barely pulled himself back before a fucking _battle axe_ swung at exactly where his head had been a second ago.

Seriously, a battle axe? Still, his antiquated weapon choice left him little room to judge... nor was this the right time to be judging juggalos on _their_ weapon choices, really.

He deflected the next swing of the axe, careful not to allow the full force of the blow land on his sword and shatter it. The juggalo wielding it staggered, not ready for her momentum to be redirected like that, and he slammed the hilt of his sword hard into her temple. She crumpled—dead or not, she wasn’t getting up any time soon.

His attention turned to another juggalo whose knife was coming straight at his stomach and jumped back just enough to buy time to swat the knife, disarm the man, and plunge the knife back into his enemy’s chest.

He stood and ran down another flight of steps and found himself staring into the barrel of a gun.

The person holding it was not in ICP get-up, just an unassuming looking woman, older than Dave. She had her hair tucked up into a bun, with a pink cardigan over gray slacks.

She smirked.

He wondered if he could freeze time fast enough to avoid the bullet that was shot from a gun not even three inches in front of him. He reached out his senses to stop time preemptively, before she fired, and, yes! There was that telltale _beat_ and for a second he started to move aside, but then his heart sped up and seemed to be thumping faster and harder than it had ever pumped blood through his body before, and he felt a clenching in his chest. Pain radiated from where his blood pusher pumped, up to his neck, across his ribcage, down into his gut.

The woman adjusted her aim and he was actually surprised. He had thought for sure he’d survive this fight, because Rose had seen his death years in the future. But the bullet of this woman’s gun was his end, eh? Or a heart attack while she debated whether or not to shoot? It'd be ironic, at least. He made a mental note to publish an addendum to his 2006 _CAQ_ piece about ironic deaths, if he survived.

And then there was a flash of light that even more than his heart’s palpitations made Dave feel sick. It was _wrong_ , bright but somehow dark at the same time, white but in the way that a blue that was too bright looked white, and it left afterimages like sickly green tentacles on Dave’s eyelids.

When he could see again, he was shocked to see Rose collapsed against the wall, long needles in her hands.

“R-Rose?!” he exclaimed, staggering forward and grabbing her. The tightness in his chest had eased some, and his heart rate was lowering into what felt like normal over-exertion levels. “What the—”

“Shut up, Dave! We have to get out of the building.”

He knew she was right, so he helped her gain her feet again, and they ran. All the way to the first floor, the stairs were littered with bodies, and the dead clowns’ eyes seemed to be melted from their bodies, their clothing showing signs of burns, smoldering and blackened. Dave shuddered as he saw one corpse sparking black electricity, still twitching, even in death.

What… what had Rose done?

On the ground level, they paused and tried to listen to make sure their escape path was clear, but they couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the alarm blaring in the stairwell and the pounding of their blood.

Chests heaving, muscles quivering, they met eyes. “Good to go?” Dave asked.

Rose nodded, and they opened the door slowly.

They were on the back side of the building, which was apparently surrounded by police.

Dave sucked in a deep breath. “I can get us out, but you have to be ready to move—fast.”

“I’m ready,” she said.

He took her hand and they walked into the light.

 

Aradia grinned as she helped another juggalo on his quest for death. Adios, motherfucker, hope your Chucklefucker Messiah is waiting for you on a big fucking merry-go-round.

She and and four others of her crew, all veterans she had known from her time in the army, had cut and hacked and shot their way into the inner sanctum of the Minneapolis building. They had one mission—find Amanda Friedman.

And find her they did, in the middle of a ring of juggalos.

The fight was intense. Seven juggalos and three of Aradia’s four fell before Aradia’s fist met Amanda’s face. A second later, Aradia pinned Amanda against the wall, using her forearm to crush the taller woman’s windpipe. The eighth and final juggalo fell to Aradia’s final ally’s baton.

Amanda clutched at Aradia’s arm, pushed weakly at her face, kicked out into her steel shin.

“You’ll have to try harder than that,” Aradia chided, and the fight went out of Friedman. She collapsed, unconscious from lack of air. Aradia let her crumple to the ground, turned to face her last friend.

They reached out to each other, embraced, weapons dropping. Aradia squeezed her eyes shut, counting down in her mind.

15... 14... 13... 12...

Amanda stirred, and neither soldier noticed as she started to drag herself toward one of the discarded guns.

9... 8... 7...Amanda raised the gun, arm quivering, fighting hard to aim at the back of Aradia's head.

... 4... 3... 2...

The building exploded. Their timelines ended.

 

Dave waited until the last second as police shouted and threatened to shoot if he and Rose didn’t freeze. They put their hands up and acted confused and scared, stumbling toward the police line like hostages recently released, and it caused enough hesitation among the officers that they got halfway before the threats were accompanied by raised and actually menacing aim.

Dave hoped against hope and froze time, his hand clenched around Rose’s wrist.

It worked.

They charged the police line and were through it in an instant. Dave held on as long as he could— _BEAT BEAT BEATBEATBEAT **BEATBEATBEATBEAT**_ —until his grip finally slipped. They were in a parking lot one building over.

Dave collapsed, clutching at his chest and groaning as pain wracked his body. Rose turned to the closest car to them—an older model of a Honda Accord—and aimed one of her wands at the window. Lightning flashed and glass warped and the driver side window was just… gone. She reached into the vehicle, unlocked it, then turned to Dave.

Grabbing his arm, she hauled her brother to his feet and guided him, stumbling and staggering, to the passenger side of the car. He was unconscious the minute he was inside.

She buckled him in, closed his door, then made her way back to the driver’s side. She hadn’t hotwired a car since she was seventeen (it had been a rebellious phase, don’t judge), but this car was old enough that not much had changed. After a minute of fumbling and a few muttered curses, the ignition caught, and she calmly drove them away from the scene.

Dave woke up just ten minutes later, in time to tiredly direct her to a hotel where they entered via the backdoor and slipped past a few concerned guests and into Dave’s rented room.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Dave asked Rose as he let himself sag onto his bed.

“I should ask you the same. Honestly, Dave! You lied to me about this?”

He covered his face with a hand. “I couldn’t just… sit by.”

“Why not?” she demanded, tone icy.

“Rose, aren’t you sick of just sitting back and letting everyone else take all the risks? What the fuck is the point?”

“The point is that you could have died!”

“You Saw me alive _years_ from now, to fight some clown presidents or some other nonsensical bullshit like that!”

She threw a pillow at him, hard. “And yesterday I _Saw_ you die in that building, on that stairwell back there!”

He craned his head up to look at her, shocked. “You—what?”

“Yes, Dave, believe it or not, the future is not fixed! Just because I saw you alive one day doesn’t mean you _can’t die_.”

“But—”

“But nothing! I left in the middle of the night and got here in time to save your ass, but—poor Kanaya, she must have noticed I’m gone by now.”

Dave’s phone chirped. He had left it on his bedside table before leaving for the Crockercorp building that morning.

There was a string of missed calls and messages from Karkat, all increasingly panicked.

 

_do you know where rose is, Kanaya said she’s missing_  
Missed call from Krabkat  
_dude where are you, breakfast can't be more important than this_  
Missed call from Krabkat  
_CALL ME DAVE_  
Missed call from Krabkat  
_DAVE SOMETHING IS WRONG ANSWER YOUR PHONE_  
_I KNOW YOU HAVE A MEETING BUT FUCK_  
Missed call from Krabkat  
Missed call from Krabkat  
Missed call from Home Phone  
Missed call from Benjamin  
_DAVE_  
_WHERE IS ROSE_  
_I THINK KANAYA WAS ATTACKED_  
Missed call from Krabkat  
_DAVE WHERE ARE YOU_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triggers: major character death, sword and gun violence, magically melted corpses, heart palpitations/heart attack symptoms, explosions, and choking.
> 
> Next chapter is the last chapter, and will have a time jump.
> 
> I mean, we knew it wasn't a happy ending. It's an Alpha Dave story. There is no happy for our babes.
> 
> Shouldn't I be working, you ask? Yes, I should. But I am masterful at avoiding my problems, and my work is my problems, so here we are. Like I said, I just really want to have this story done. And the last chapter is partially written already so maybe it'll only be a few more days before this story is wrapped. Wow.


	16. Even in Death

Dave stood on the roof of his old apartment building in Houston, looking out over the wasteland that had been his childhood home. Some people still lived in Houston, the poor wretches. The lucky ones had canoes or row boats that they would paddle through the flooded streets and parks to areas with high enough elevation that they weren’t submerged, where it was still possible to scavenge for food. There was no power in the city, anymore, not since the Condesce had officially announced that Houston was a lost cause.

Apparently, when Dirk would live here, the water would be much, much higher, and somehow there would be power and internet access for his apartment. And food. Dave didn’t know the details of how that was possible, and on his worst days, he didn’t believe it _was_. Rose would always try to explain it again, about how HIC (he _hated_ that title, hated that _calling_ her by it felt so second nature now) would make sure that Roxy and Dirk survived so they could play the game or what the fuck ever.

He was here by himself, today. Today being December 3rd, 2013. Dave’s 38th birthday. He felt old—far, far older than anyone had a right to feel at 38. It felt like déjà vu, like every birthday he had lived through was somehow all happening at once. Time was weird. 

December 3rd was also going to be Dirk’s birthday, apparently, because the universe was an ironic piece of shit and he hated it.

He had come after years of avoiding this place, and his melancholy at finally being here was as deep and impenetrable as he had anticipated. It sucked. Life sucked. Everything sucked.

A telltale buzz of an incoming Imperial drone alerted him with plenty of time to hack the thing into pieces. His sword hadn’t left his hand since he had hacked the last three to pieces twenty minutes ago. He knew HIC wasn’t _really_ trying to kill him, not yet, but this was still the most she had sent after him in a while. He supposed she wouldn’t be too broken up about it if he died on a rooftop in Houston with none but the carrion birds to note his demise. In Los Angeles, it was too risky to move against him so obviously, but while he was alone in a dead city where no one would look for him? Sure, send some drones, why not. It didn’t really matter to her if they failed or succeeded.

He kicked the decapitated head of the drone off the roof and watched it until it splashed into the water below.

His phone chirped, for the sixth time.

This time, he answered it. This was the right time to answer.

“Dave!” Karkat’s voice was relieved, and cut through the melancholy a little bit. But only for a minute, because Dave knew what Karkat didn’t about the next few months. “Are you okay? You haven’t been answering.”

“Yeah, babe, I’m okay. Been dealing with some drones, that’s all.”

“Shit. They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

“No. What’s up?”

“Have you seen the news?”

Dave detachedly noticed the little pang of dread that those words elicited, wishing he _actually_ felt it instead of just noting it existed. Christ he hated being apart from himself like this. “No,” he said, voice flat.

Karkat paused. “Well, the Zambian resistance fell today,” he said quietly.

Dave knew he should be upset, knew that he should squeeze his eyes shut, feel angry and sad, want to do something. It was almost like he was observing himself and naming the emotions: sadness. Anger. Worry.

“Dave?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Dave, I’m worried about you,” Karkat said, and yeah, Dave could hear the worry in his voice. Regret. Apologetic. “Come home.”

“I will. Today.”

“Really?” Karkat sounded hopeful. “Dave, can you do something for me?”

“What?”

“Count the number of red things you see.”

Dave knew what he was doing—remembered how this went. But yeah, Karkat was right, so he did as asked. He looked around. There was a canoe a street over with a woman in a red shirt. One. The sun was an angry splotch in the sky, two. His phone case had a red rose on the back of it, three. His shoes had red laces, four, five. The Imperial drones were red, six (he counted them all together, who cared). “Six,” he said.

“And blue?”

The sky, one. His jeans, two. Some wires sticking out of one of the gaping wounds on the most recently destroyed drone, three. “Three,” he said.

“Okay. And can you find something rough to touch?”

He crouched down, running his hands through the gravel. He took a shuddering breath. “Yeah, the gravel on the roof,” he said.

“Something smooth?”

He trailed his fingers over his sword’s length, the metal cool and smooth to touch. In all his memories, it felt just the same. Trustworthy. “My sword,” he said. “Karkat, thanks. I… I’m here.”

It was a trick they’d learned years ago, a way to bring Dave back to himself when he started to drift away from himself. Make him feel present, find connections to his body and his senses.

“I love you, Dave,” Karkat said, and his voice was sad and thick with emotion.

And yeah, that cutting into his heart was definitely something he was feeling presently, something he felt so deeply, and it hurt like hell. It felt like… like the _memory_ of love, out of reach. “Love you, too. I really am coming home today.”

“Well, good, because you’ve been gone for too long and we miss you. And also it’s your birthday and you shouldn’t be alone in the wasteland on your birthday.”

Dave almost chuckled. “See you soon?”

“Yeah. And Dave, don’t forget about Rose’s birthday tomorrow.”

“I know. Thanks, babe.”

They said goodbye and disconnected. Dave didn’t notice that Karkat hadn’t wished him a happy birthday. They’d given up wishing happiness to each other on their birthdays in 2009.

2009, when they had lost Aradia in the Rebranding Strikes.

2009, when the majority of their resistance had been crushed. After the successful attacks on the day of the rebranding, it had been a hopeful moment for them. Until May 2nd, when the batterwitch had struck back. Aradia hadn’t been kidding when she had told them that HIC planned to move fast after the rebranding. Drones had struck in the night, across the country, and casualties included Rudy, Tavita, and about half of the people who had joined the cause in every capacity from donors to undercover spies to those who wrote and distributed the resistance newspaper.

The rest of the year had been an endless campaign of harassment from the Condesce. It had built up steadily, and had ended at midnight on December 4th, with the death of Vriska and the majority of her Native American resistance team. The exact moment that Dave’s birthday rolled over into Rose’s was the moment Vriska had been skewered on the end of a golden trident. In a grotesque display, the Empire’s forces had dressed her in a racist Pocahontas costume and left her pinned up on a fake teepee. Outrage over the racist display had been silenced quickly and brutally.

In the years since then, global disaster was the norm. Sea levels rose and consumed cities, islands, entire nations. Entire populations were erased as relief to island nations was too slow and too small to actually provide escape for refugees trying to get away from the water lapping at their heels. Food sources dried up as ecosystems collapsed, and fresh water was hard to come by. In the US, people flocked to the Dark Carnival, believing not their doom but their salvation lay with the Condesce. Elsewhere, as in most African countries, people fought.

The Zambian resistance had been the last African pocket holding out against the Condesce.

Europe was falling the way North America was—the slow conversion of the masses to the Dark Carnival, the rise of religious/political groups into power.

The clown presidents were elected in November of 2012, and Guy Fieri’s position as High Priest of the Dark Carnival had replaced the entire Supreme Court of the United States.

The worst thing that had happened in 2009, though, was when Rose had stopped talking to Dave.

 

_They made it to New York as fast as they could following the news from Karkat that Kanaya had been attacked, but they weren’t fast enough._

_At the hospital, Rose had been denied access to Kanaya because she wasn’t family. No matter how many times she had repeated that she was her girlfriend, the nurse had told her to leave, until finally security had come. Dave had been arguing with the nurse, too, so the two of them were removed from the premises._

_Dave used a combination of cash bribes and time shenanigans to get them back to Kanaya’s room, and they were in time to see the doctors covering her body and jotting down the time of death._

_“Rose,” Dave had begun; his chest felt tight and he knew it wasn’t because of the time powers he had been abusing._

_She had ignored him, rushed into the room. Around her, a penumbra of the same quality of eerie blackish white light that Dave had seen her use during the escape from the Austin Crockercorp building. Every machine in the room went haywire, beeps and alarms and screeches of metal making a cacophony that stung Dave's ears as whatever dark magic surrounding Rose interfered with electronic signals. The doctors and nurses in Kanaya’s room had stumbled and staggered away from her in wide-eyed fear as she had thrown herself at Kanaya’s body, howling in a language that made Dave’s blood run cold._

_It didn’t matter. No dark majykks from the horrorterrors in the depths of oblivion could bring someone back to life. Maybe if the Crocker girl had been around, it would have been a different story. But by now, Jane and Dirk and the others had probably already accomplished whatever it was they had set out to do. Save the world, he guessed._

_Watching his sister wail over the body of her deceased beloved, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that the world had been saved._

_The dark magic had eventually drained away and suddenly they were forcibly removed from the hospital once again. It took everything Dave had left in him to keep Rose from physically (or, magically he supposed) attacking the security guards and police officers who came to remove them._

_In the parking lot, Rose had turned on Dave, puffy red rings around her lavender eyes. “You had to go to Austin,” she said, her voice the kind of calm that made Dave take a step away from her in fear. “You couldn’t bear to sit on the sidelines anymore.” A long, narrow needle appeared in her hand, and Dave took another step back, eyes wide in fright. “I had to leave her to save you,” Rose said, the accusation clear._

_The wand raised. “R-Rose,” he pleaded. “Please.”_

_This was the wrong thing to say. Black-framed white light sparked out of the wand in multiple directions. Where it struck the pavement, chunks of concrete flew outward like a bomb had detonated. One such chunk hit Dave’s knee, hard, and he staggered back, yelping in pain._

_“Do you think she pleaded for her life, too, Dave?” Rose asked, the calm of her voice broken as she began to shout. “Do you think she called my name, too?”_

_“If you had been there, all three of us would be dead tonight, Rose,” he had reasoned, still backing up as she advanced. “The Baroness sent people to kill you and Kanaya, not to play games.”_

_“You don’t know that!” she yelled, and more black/white sparks spewed in every direction. A car lost its side mirror to the void._

_Dave took a deep breath and stepped forward instead of back. Rose glared at him, but despite keeping the wand trained on his chest, she did not attack. He slowly stepped toward her again. “Rose, remember when Terry died? And I asked you why you hadn’t foreseen her death so we could try to stop it? Or why you hadn’t foreseen the bomb at the New Year’s party? Do you remember your answer?”_

_Rose’s hand started to shake, molten light dripping off the wand dangerously, pooling at her feet before disappearing. “It’s not the same!”_

_“You said that your best guess is that sometimes, Seeing an event would make things worse. That sometimes, if you Saw that someone was going to die or be injured, we’d try to change the course of events, and that worse things would happen. You said that, the path to the most favorable outcome sometimes includes tragedies that avert other, worse consequences.”_

_“It’s **not the same** , Dave!” she screamed, slashing the wand down. The ground next to him erupted as lightning struck. He stumbled forward, into her, grabbing her hand and squeezing its base hard enough that her fingers loosened by reflex, then he shook her whole arm by the wrist, hard. The wand tumbled from her fingertips and disappeared back into her strife specibus._

_“Maybe you didn’t See this outcome because… you would have stayed with her, and all three of us would be dead right now,” he said quietly._

_Rose pulled her hand away from him, shoulders slumping and tears coming back to her face. He reached out to her, but she jerked back, not letting him touch her. “Go away, Dave,” she said._

_“Rose….”_

_“ **Go away** ,” she repeated._

 

After that, the only communications he received from Rose had been text messages and the occasional phone call about issues related to the resistance, until the night Vriska had been murdered. The night between their birthdays, almost eight months later.

He had thought struggling to stay sober had been hard before, but in the wake of Kanaya and Aradia’s deaths, with Rose blaming him (and him blaming himself, no matter what he had said to Rose in the hospital parking lot)…. He asked for too much from Karkat, and their relationship had suffered as he placed the burden of sobriety where it shouldn’t have gone, and things were spiraling fast.

Vriska dying had brought Rose to Los Angeles, and after much yelling, crying, blaming, and other hysterics, they had emerged from the worst of it. Rose moved to Los Angeles the next month, and things seemed to even out. Dave found better outlets and support structures for continuing his sobriety, giving Karkat space to breathe again. Rose threw herself into writing, churning out a new novel dedicated to Kanaya in which the anti-Condesce messages were clearer than ever.

Donald Glover won his Oscar for his role in _Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff: The Geromovy_ in 2011, and gave a rousing speech about defying HIC and fighting for the well-being of the planet. He was assassinated not even a month later.

Dave created shitty, 3D jpeg statues of liberty and scattered hundreds of them across the globe in Glover’s honor.

The SBaHJ movies took a dark turn. They were still full of distortions and nonsense, but neither Dave nor his co-producer Abigail cared to be coy anymore. Stiller and Wilson were in. Blatant messages were included to audiences about resisting. Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff were shown fighting invading aliens. Entire movies were dedicated to trying to preserve the environment and stop runaway global warming. The animated TV series was canceled but Dave kept producing it, publishing it online, in which the heroines (Sweet Bro, Hella Jeff, and Geromy) went on daring missions to work to evacuate people from areas where the land was being swallowed by the sea.

 

Dave found himself on the airplane headed back to Los Angeles. Briefly disoriented, he wondered how he had gotten here but—well, he guessed he remembered. The boat, the helicopter waiting on a nearby roof. Yeah. It had... definitely been that.

He reached for his phone before it rang. Huh.

“Have you figured it out yet?” Rose asked after he answered on the first ring.

He frowned. “That’s not what you’re supposed to say.”

She sighed. “Very well. Let’s see… oh, yes. Have you responded to the invitation to the Black and Purple House yet?” The White House had been repainted and renamed last year.

Now things were on track. Dave nodded, despite talking on the phone. “Yeah. Everything is set up for January 18th.”

“Very well. Have you told Karkat?”

A long silence. Dave regretted not telling Karkat. But… that didn’t really make sense, because he still had the chance to….

“Rose,” he said slowly. “Is this… a memory?”

“Is it, Dave?”

“I….” He looked around the plane. This was definitely the plane from that day, his 38th birthday, when he had flown from Texas back to California. But, he remembered… the future? No, it was the past. “This isn’t right,” he said, confused. “I remember….”

“What do you remember?” Rose prompted, and her calmness at the way this whole interaction was suddenly _way_ off track kept him from panicking.

“I remember the day we found Stiller’s body,” he said. “That was January 2nd. A… a month from now.”

“Yes. A tragic day,” Rose agreed.

“And then, we went to Washington DC to deal with the clown presidents and Guy Fieri. I knocked that kid over and stole her skateboard.” He chuckled. “I bet people are going to tell legends about me on that skateboard for years.”

“I have no doubt they will,” Rose replied fondly.

“And then,” Dave continued, frowning. “And then… Betty called.”

 

_The intermingled blood of the two clown presidents was still dripping off of his sword when his phone rang. The screen read “WATERBITCH.”_

_“Water’s up, Strider,” Betty crowed into the phone. “You fin-ished with those clown douchelords yet?”_

_“Why do I get the feeling you’re not mad that your puppet presidents are dead?” he had asked, tired and so fucking over everything._

_“Bouy, how many times do I hafta tell you,” she said, her voice making her amusement clear, “everyfin’ you do just helps my plans. But I’m tired of your meddling.”_

_“How is it meddling if it advances your agenda?” Dave pointed out, grabbing the Unreal Air skateboard he had stolen off some kid from where he had pinned it down with his sword scabbard wedged into a crack in the wall so it wouldn't fly off without him._

_“Bish, if I wanted to argue, I’d’ve fuckin’ called your sister. She’s at least a seaworthy opponent.”_

_“Okay, then what do you want?”_

_“It’s bad for business, lettin’ you and Rosie get away with killin’ my favorite pets. Can’t go lettin’ my anemones do whatever they want without conseaquences.”_

_“Are you done with the fish puns yet? Because I’m really over the fucking fish puns,” Dave sighed._

_“Yet another reason I have better taste than you,” Betty answered. “Now, listen. It’s time for you and Rose to die, so I need you and her to haul ass back to California and give your last stand all you’ve got.”_

_“What? No. Why the hell would we do that?”_

_“The way I sea it, you don’t have much of a choice. Either you and the Seer bitch come and fight me, or your friend Lucy gets culled tomorrow.”_

_Dave’s blood ran cold. “This isn’t the first time you’ve threatened Lucy to get me to comply,” he said, voice far calmer than he felt. “And last time, you didn’t follow through.”_

_“Last time, I had a more strategically sound target. It was a shellfish decision, to kill Terry instead of Lucy, but I think it still made its mark, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Now, there’s no one better to threaten, except maybe your buoyfriend. So, you choose. Crabby or Lucy?” A pause, during which Dave couldn’t find words in the midst of his rage. “Or neither, and you and Rose come and fight me.”_

 

“And then I remember fighting, and damn, Rose, we put up one hell of a fight.”

“Yes, we did, Dave,” Rose agreed, a smile in her voice. “But we knew what would happen before we went, didn’t we.”

“Yeah,” Dave said, and he took off his shades and looked at himself in their reflective glass. He saw his eyes go from their normal shade, to all white. “I remember her using my own sword to run me through. I think it broke.”

A tap on his shoulder. He turned around and instead of an airplane, he was now looking out over a forested expanse of land. Rose smiled up at him, her own eyes similarly white. “We gave almost as good as we got,” she said. “It was truly a battle for the history books.”

Dave let out a heavy sigh. He felt… lightweight. Unburdened. “Where are we?” he asked.

“Oh, the afterlife, I suppose,” Rose said. “Or more likely, in a dreambubble in the Farthest Ring, like when I met Calliope all those years ago.”

“Is this it for us, now? We just live forever in this bubble?”

Rose shrugged. “I’m as new to this as you are. But… I think maybe we’ll be meeting an old friend soon.”

They walked along in silence in the woods—Rose’s woods, until they came upon her house in New York. The house where Roxy would grow up (had already grown up), though apparently the trees surrounding it would be long gone by the time the girl arrived. The house where Kanaya had been fatally wounded.

They stood outside the front doors, hand in hand. Rose shook her head, unwilling to go in and face the emptiness of the house that she hadn’t lived in for years, now.

Dave gently tugged her hand and they turned and moved away from the house. A few steps later, and they were suddenly at the apartment in Houston, but the way Dave remembered it from when he had been a kid. The messy, shoddy rooms and stifling heat.

Dave led Rose to the roof, and when they got there, the timing of the memory had shifted forward to his last visit to Houston, when the water was high. They sat on the edge of the roof and watched the waves lap against the building far below.

“What’s that?” Dave asked, pointing at something red in the sky that seemed to be flying toward them.

“The friend I mentioned,” Rose said happily.

It was Aradia, but also not Aradia. She had gray skin and orange/yellow ram horns, and wore this fancy pajama-like outfit of which Dave was hella jealous. She explained a bit about dreambubbles, and her own role as a kind of guide in the afterlife, and then she offered to help them if they were seeking something.

“Kanaya,” Rose said immediately. “Is she here?”

“And… our Aradia?” Dave added. “Or do duplicates go away when they die?”

Aradia smiled. “Don’t be silly! There are _so_ many Aradias out here, you have no idea! Dave—well, the other Dave—always complained about Dead Daves piling up, but we Aradias win that contest, hands down. And yes, they are both here! I can help you find them."

 

Time didn’t really mean as much out here in the dreambubble, but Dave still noticed it passing. He could give a rough estimate of how long it had been since he had died, sometimes, but other times time became slippery and confusing, unclear. After such a stretch, his next time-lucid moment usually came with a surprise jump in time. Before one such unclear stretch, he had been dead for just under a year. After it, he had been dead for two years and a few months. It didn’t matter though; his awareness of time was a vestige of his aspect abilities, relative to time on Earth, and time on Earth had very little to do with his existence, now.

It was in one of the unclear stretches—last he could really tell, he thought he remembered having been dead for… maybe… four years?—that he next saw the living Aradia. The one with ram horns and cool pajamas and a non-robotic body.

“Hi Dave!” she yelled while still some distance away, grinning at him as she flew closer with her fairy wings, her wide yellow eyes bordering between cute and creepy. Dave waved back, looking up from where he and Rose were planting a dream garden. They had been busy, building a castle-like home, surrounding it with memories of beautiful scenery from their lives. A stable little portion of dreambubble to call home in between adventures out into other bubbles.

(To be honest, Dave had never once in his life imagined himself gardening, but the afterlife had a way of softening edges and rounding corners, and he couldn’t really bring himself to feel too cool to plant imaginary trees and flowers and shrubs. Plus he had planted a dick tree of his own imagination/invention that Rose didn’t know about, and he couldn’t wait for it to start growing penises.)

“Hi Aradia,” he said as she finally landed next to him. “What’s new?”

“Nothing at all!” she said knowingly. “But something is about to change!”

“Oh yeah?” he asked, patting some soil down around where he had just finished planting on of the thousands of petunia plants that Rose had insisted needed to go in the ground today. He clapped his hands together to get the dirt off, then stood up and stretched. “What’s that?”

“Karkat’s coming!”

Dave froze mid-stretch and instantly reached for his awareness of time, but it had been slippery and impossible for a while now and he didn’t really expect to grasp it today. To be honest, Karkat was the only reason he still tried. He was keeping track of how long Karkat got to live after Dave's own death, hoping beyond hope that that he would feel many years pass so that Karkat could live a full life.

But last he knew, it was only four-ish years. Perhaps it was a mercy. It wasn’t like life on Earth had become pleasant since his death; undoubtedly, the Condesce had only continued to make things increasingly hellish.

Then he remembered that he had already met some dead, teenaged troll Karkats, and frowned at Aradia. “Do you mean _my_ Karkat?”

She nodded. “I thought you might want to be there when he realizes what has happened.”

Dave swallowed hard and nodded, heart pounding. He followed Aradia and suddenly found himself outside his car at a gas station, filling the tank of his old Lexus RX, shades on his face. It was nighttime in Los Angeles, and Karkat was mostly asleep in the passenger seat of the car. Aradia was walking away, but she paused to look back.

“It’s kinder to let them remember on their own, Dave,” she said, then disappeared into the night.

This was the night Karkat had first come to live in LA with him. He remembered feeling relieved that no one had recognized him while he had stopped to pump gas on the outskirts of the city after driving most of the way from Fresno already.

The tank was full. Dave went through the motions of finishing up the task and then got in the car. It was Karkat’s memory, though, so he wasn’t surprised when a few minutes later the car was miraculously pulling into the garage of Dave’s estate in Beverly Hills. Karkat had fallen asleep in real life. Dave remembered shaking him awake, so he reached over and repeated the motion.

The dark-skinned man was alert in a flash, reaching behind himself as if for a weapon. Dave tried not to grin as he remembered how this had gone, showing Karkat his open palms to reveal his lack of weapon.

“Whoa, there, bud,” he said, the script coming to him easily despite the fact that he couldn’t believe he had ever called Karkat ‘bud.’ “No strifing tonight.” Dave went through the motions of gesturing through the windshield to the rest of the garage. “Welcome home, I guess.” The words made his heart clench. _Welcome home. Welcome to where our consciousness will exist until we fade into nothingness, or whatever happens to ghosts out here after enough time passes._

Karkat looked around as he got out of the car, just like he had that first night, taking in the collection of ostentatious vehicles. Dave watched for it and—yep, there it was, the eye roll. “Of course you have a million cars,” Karkat muttered, stretching his back.

“You could at least pretend to be impressed,” Dave pouted, almost as sincerely this time as he had been the first time. Hey, he had _liked_ his stupid fancy cars! He walked around to the back of the Lexus and took out Karkat’s duffle, slinging it over his shoulder before handing over the backpack.

Karkat put the backpack on his shoulders, frowned. “I can carry the duffle, asshat,” he said.

“I know you can,” Dave said with a shrug.

Suddenly Dave was holding a suitcase with wheels instead.

Karkat frowned. “Wasn’t it… this?”

Dave’s heart skipped. He remembered this night, too. This was when Dave had picked Karkat up from the airport after their year break, during which Karkat had been spending most of his time in Dallas and Chicago, while Dave had been focusing on his sobriety. They had done that same song and dance in the garage then, just with a different bag.

“I can take that, you know” Karkat said, referring to the luggage just like he had after that October day, but he was frowning like he knew something was off.

Dave grinned and continued hauling the luggage up the stairs. “I know,” he said.

Karkat shook his head. “Wait, I… remember this. This was the first night we….”

“Aw,” Dave said, “don’t you want to relive it a _little_ longer?” Dave had kinda been hoping Karkat wouldn’t really notice until they were well on their way to sexy time. Was that creepy? It was probably creepy. But the idea of getting to experience their first time together a second time was oddly appealing. Too late, Karkat was staring with wide eyes.

“You’re dead,” Karkat whispered.

Dave chuckled. “Yeah, I know.”

“And… I remember… fuck, Dave, I remember a solid _five years_ after Betty skewered you. How the fuck are you here?”

“It’s not about where _I_ am,” Dave said. He took off his sunglasses, and Karkat actually gasped a little when he beheld the all-white orbs beneath. He reached out and touched Dave’s cheek next to one of his ghostly eyes. Dave’s whole body shuddered at the touch. Fuck he had missed Karkat.

“So, you’re a ghost?” Karkat asked.

“Yep.”

“So am I… dead, too?”

“Well, it’s a dreambubble,” Dave said, remembering what Aradia had said. “People are either dead or asleep out here.”

Karkat cocked an eyebrow. “How do you know that?”

“I’ve been here for—what’d you say, five years? So I’ve picked up some sweet new facts about death and shit.”

Karkat rolled his eyes. “You sound like Aradia.”

“She’s here, too,” Dave said, but he was eager for Karkat to focus on realizing he was dead so they could move forward. “What do you remember?” he prompted.

It turned out that Karkat had been killed in a showdown between the last of the resistance fighters in North America and a combined force of juggalo humans and imperial drones. He remembered the battle, remembered using his Knight of Blood powers against the human fighters, but being defenseless against the drone that had finally finished him off.

As Dave watched, his eyes faded to white.

“Welcome to the afterlife,” Dave said. As he took Karkat into his arms, his sense of time solidified. It had been five years, seven months, twenty-two days, eighteen hours, three minutes, and forty-four seconds since he had last held Karkat in his arms.

Then his brief hold on time slipped away, and he knew that he would never reach out to it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Wow! I wrote this all in a few months and it was a great outlet for some creative stress relief in the midst of a lot of struggle for me. So, thanks for enjoying it with me! I hope that you and I both see it for what it is: a fun ride, a story about struggle and love, and nothing more or less serious than an attempt to casually tell you something about a character (or five) that I love.
> 
> I will probably go back and change all of the timeline so that it fits with the correct rebranding date. The rebranding shaped the entire time frame for this since the very beginning in my mind, long before it was relevant to readers. So it really will take some dedicated work to make sure I catch everything when updating, and I just don't know if I'm going to care enough to do all of that. So for future readers, if the dates are still wrong, then I guess I never got around to it. Sorry, but also, not sorry, because I write fanfiction for fun and sometimes that means shrugging off imperfections like this.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this last chapter! We all know the story of Dave and Rose's battles, so I didn't want that to be the end. Dave was dead the whole time in this chapter, including that first conversation with a dream Karkat. There are little hints and clues that he's in a memory--did you catch any of them?
> 
> Your comments and kudos have really been wonderful for me! I don't hang out on tumblr but if you leave comments I usually reply, and if you want to get in touch other ways, just say so in the comments. I'll probably be turning my attention back to the other HS fic I have going, but I've got a weird idea for a horror Dirk fic kicking around that kinda wants to emerge, so I might switch gears to that. Who knows!
> 
> It's been fun! Until next time, friends. Carry on, keep fighting, and thank you, thank you, thank you.


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